Why no "Banner Ad Eaters"?

[John Blair]

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tcmay at got.net said:
> Yeah, I'm surprised that "banner ad eaters" have not been widely
> deployed. (If they're available, I haven't about them.) Something to
> remove the annoying banners, or stop them from wasting valuable time
> loading in the first place.

Netscape just announced that they're going to release the source code 
to Communicator 5.0 with a license that allows modification and 
redistribution "in the heritage of the GNU Public License."  No 
details on the specific license yet, but it sounds *very* hopeful.

The point is... we *will* be able to add all the funky new features 
we want.  Complaining about the browser will no longer be acceptable 
now that we will be able to *do* something about it.  It also means 
that Microsoft will get to compete head-to-head with a real free 
software model.  This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate what 
the free software model can do.  I can already envision non-Netscape 
"distributions," custom browser modifications for big customers, etc.

More info here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/980122/ca_netscap_3.html
http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/980122/business/stories/netscape_1.html
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980122.ehnetcode.htm


 -john.




......................................................................
.                                                                    .
.....John.D.Blair...   mailto:jdblair at uab.edu   phoneto:205.975.7123 .
                   .   http://frodo.tucc.uab.edu  faxto:205.975.7129 .
 ..sys|net.admin....                                                 .
 .                     the university computer center            .....
 ..... g.e.e.k.n.i.k...the.university.of.alabama.at.birmingham....




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