10 years ago, on 31 march 1998, the source code for Netscape's Communicator 5.0 product was released. It is certainly worth a mention, as it was a significant step in Open source's spread. The Mozilla Public License has also been used as a foundation by other projects.

It might have been a difficult start, with complete rewrites being the only solution in some cases and bringing numerous delays, but those days a far way now. Mozilla is now an independent organisation that launched a for-profit subsidiary based on Firefox' success.

On the 9 february 1998, the Open Source Definition was published, marking the start of the Open Source movement. This definition is not a license, but lists the characteristics of an Open Source software license. This definition is the base used for certifying license as Open Source, of which a list is available.