The success of the Linux operating system has proven a principle that Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, has been arguing for decades. Stallman believes that software does not constitute artifacts, since it costs virtually nothing to reproduce and distribute. Rather, software is a form of intellectual property that should be shared with the rest of the world and not shielded in proprietary secrecy. He has led a long crusade to encourage companies to always publish the source code to their programs in order to make them easier to develop and maintain. Corporations have always argued back that they would never be able to produce quality programs of any complexity if thousands of people worldwide were meddling with them. The Linux phenomenon has more or less proved Stallman right.
Netscape Software has decided to attempt to apply the Linux development model to their Mozilla web browser product, and has released its source code. This will be the first test to see whether Stallman's idealistic concept is commercially viable. If they succeed, they may revolutionize the software industry. If they fail, the open source development model may be shunned by commercial software companies for decades to come.