July 15th, 2003: The Mozilla Foundation was formed

Starting as a Netscape Project in 1998 to facilitate the growth of a tech community that used the company’s free to use software and code.

The hope was that it would spark innovation, leading to a more accessible, safer and free-er internet. The project would then self-fund by providing any new programs to companies, who would then find ways to commercialize them.

As Netscape steadily lost the First Browser War to Microsoft the project sort of crystalized around keeping some sliver of the web out of the control of Internet Explorer’s Monopoly.

The day Netscape closed, the non-profit Mozilla Foundation was created and designated the project's legal steward.

Mozilla’s email client and rival to Outlook, Thunderbird, was launched at the end of the month and In 2004 they launched the Firefox web browser.

Thanks to some security issues and terrible design choices in Explorer, Firefox eventually gained close to a 3rd of the Browser Market before Google’s Chrome came in and stomped on everyone ending the second browser war.

The Mozilla Foundation still continues to advocate for a safer and freer internet but in 2021 it angered many by apparently focussing on the first part at the expense of the second.

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