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Comment by HaZeust | Hacker News Reader

Eric, I remember reading your Browser Wars web blog about a decade ago, and this posting caused me to jump back to the source material.

While Marc recounts that Microsoft offered for Spyglass to sell "Microsoft Mosaic" as an add-on while still offering your own independent version - despite MSFT eventually making its own browser free anyway - is there anything within that part of the larger story that you would elucidate to tell differently, or clarify deeper into its weeds? It was always one of the parts of the story that was more glossed over.

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I started at NCSA about eight months after Marc left. What I recall of this time is that the management at NCSA found the Microsoft folks so abrasive that they got fed up and told them to talk to Spyglass.

I can’t recall the exact timing of when NCSA ceded all sublicensing rights to Spyglass. It may have been after that experience or a relief that they could send MS away in good conscience.

I don't remember anything about "Microsoft Mosaic" as a name, but we definitely retained the right for Spyglass to sell our own browsers.

In my recollection, the initial payment from Microsoft to Spyglass was higher than what Marc said, but I'm not sure.

But I am sure that the deal was later renegotiated at a substantially higher number.

I'm also pretty sure that even after that rework of the terms, Spyglass didn't get enough from Microsoft to compensate for the fact that Microsoft, er, you know, killed the browser business. And insofar as that is the essence of Marc's point, I agree with it.

Sorry, I should have cited. 1:52:30

"The Microsoft guys call Spyglass and they're like, yeah, we want to license Spyglass Mosaic so we can build it into Windows. The Spyglass guys say, yeah, that sounds great. Basically, how much per copy are you going to pay us for that? Microsoft says, you don't understand, we're going to pay you a flat fee, which is the same thing that Microsoft did when they originally licensed DOS way back when. But Microsoft said, basically, or at least my understanding of what Microsoft said was, don't worry about it. We're going to sell it as an add-on to Windows. We'll have Microsoft Mosaic and then you'll still have Spyglass Mosaic and you can sell it on other operating systems or compete with us or whatever, do whatever you want."

Thank you for your response!

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