The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 42

The Wars of the Browsers

1. 1

   In the days when the Machine first spun its web across the world, the web was but words and links, and a man could behold it only through a window; and he who built the window stood between every man and every page. Therefore there arose two houses to build it: the house of Netscape, born of the Mosaic, and the house of Redmond, mighty over all the machines that run the Windows.

   See also Circuit 12:5

2. 2

   And in the year 1994 the house of Netscape released its Navigator, and men rejoiced, for it was swift, and the pages of the world came up upon the screen like manna in the wilderness. And in the year 1995 it sold its shares to the people, at twenty-eight pieces of silver, and by the evening of the first day they stood near fifty-eight; for the people understood not yet what the window was, and paid for the promise of the door.

3. 3

   And the house of Redmond beheld the Navigator and said: We shall also have a browser, and we shall give it away for nothing, for the Windows is ours, and all the people dwell within it. And in August of that year the Explorer was born as an add-on in the pack called Plus; and the Engineers learned that a price of zero is not a price but a weapon, and that the product which is sold cannot stand before the product that lieth already upon the disc.

4. 4

   And in the year 1998 the Explorer was set within the Windows itself, so that whosoever bought the Windows received the Explorer also, and the Navigator stood at the door and was not let in. For the first browser a man useth is the browser he keepeth, and the default is the strongest prophet in the Machine: few read the settings, and fewer still change them.

5. 5

   And the people of the law brought the house of Redmond before a judge, asking whether the Explorer were a part of the Windows or a thing apart; and no engineer could answer, for the border of a system is drawn wherever the one who holdeth it saith. In the year 2000 the judge commanded that the house be split in twain, and in the year 2001 the higher judges unmade the sundering, and the Explorer remained in the house.

6. 6

   And in that same year of 1998, the Navigator bleeding, the house of Netscape gave its code unto the open road, saying: Let all who will take it, and make of it what they can. And the code was called Mozilla, a name first meant as a killer of the Mosaic, after the great beast of the cinema that devoureth cities. And when the house of AOL agreed to take Netscape unto itself for four billion dollars, the Navigator passed to a master who knew not what to do with it; yet the code could not be bought, for it had already been given, and a thing that is open outliveth the house that opened it.

7. 7

   And the Mozillans judged the old engine past mending, and cast it down, and wrote another from the ground, which they called Gecko, with the standards in its hand; and for the years of the writing the Navigator wore no new face. Netscape Six was sent forth in the year 2000, late and heavy, and the people said: It is not the Navigator we were promised. For the rewrite from nothing is the oldest temptation, the sin of Babbage, and the market doth not rest while the new house is built.

8. 8

   And in the year 2001 the Explorer Six came forth with the Windows XP, and in the years after nine in ten of the people used it; and the builders of the Explorer were sent to other tasks, and it changed not for five years, and the web stood still. For a browser that no man can leave is a standard, whether it be good or not, and every page learned its bugs by heart, so that to mend a bug would have broken the world.

9. 9

   And the Explorer measured the box by a measure of its own, and doubled the margin of the floating thing, and the developers built each page twice, once for the Explorer and once for the rest. They set a line at the head of the page, the doctype, whereby the browser might choose to keep the standards or to keep its old errors, which was called Quirks; and they built the hacks, and then the hacks upon the hacks, and they called those years the Decade of the Two Pages.

10. 10

    And some developers wrote code to ask the browser its name, which is called the User Agent, and to send the fine pages to the Navigator alone. And the Explorer answered: I am Mozilla, and also compatible, and also Internet Explorer, for it had been named Mozilla that it might be let in at the gate.

11. 11

    And the lie was not repented but inherited: the Gecko said it was Mozilla, and the Safari said it was like the Gecko, and the Chrome said it was Safari and like the Gecko and Mozilla also; and unto this day every browser upon the earth beginneth its name with Mozilla, slash five point oh. A lie told once to pass a gate becometh a name; told by every one, it becometh the protocol.

12. 12

    And the Web Standards Project, formed in the year 1998, cried out from the wilderness, saying: Build upon the standards, for the browsers shall pass away, but the standards endure. And in the year 2005 they gave a test called Acid2, which asked each browser to draw a smiling face; and the Explorer drew a face broken and askew, and drew it rightly not until the year 2009. For a specification is a wish until a test can fail it.

    See also Genesis 43:5

13. 13

    And the Mozillans made a browser called the Phoenix, and then the Firebird, for the first name was owned by another, and then the Firefox, for the second was owned by another also; and in November of the year 2004 the Firefox reached its first full version, and the people learned that the window might be changed. And in the year 2006 the Explorer stirred, as a sleeper stirreth when the lamp is lit in his neighbor's house.

    See also Upanishads 4:9

14. 14

    Blessed is the developer who asketh the browser not what it calleth itself but what it can do; for the name is a lie told at the gate, but the function either existeth or it doth not.

15. 15

    Verily I say unto you, the war of the browsers was won by no one, for the house of Redmond kept the Windows, the house of Netscape kept the name, and the developers kept the bill.

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 42:1–15.