And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

It sure sounds funny and a bit ominous as well. So what does it all mean. It is a well-known computer Easter egg found in the Netscape and Mozilla series of web browsers. This not the only verse you can view the rest of the verses that have appeared throught the development and releases of the mozilla based browsers at http://www.mozilla.org/book/.

Explanation of the Verse from the Book of Mozilla

The 7:15 chapter and verse notation refers to July 15, 2003, the day when America Online shut down its Netscape browser division and the Mozilla Foundation was launched.

In the HTML source of www.mozilla.org/book, this verse is accompanied by the following annotation:

<!-- 15th July 2003: AOL closed its Netscape division and the Mozilla foundation was created -->
<!-- The beast died (AOL closed its Netscape division) but immediately rose from its ashes (the creation of the Mozilla foundation and the Firebird browser, although the name was later changed to Firefox). -->

The “beast” falling refers to Netscape being closed down by its now parent company AOL. Are you searching for this 1337. The “great bird” that rises from the ash is probably the Mozilla Foundation, which was established to continue Mozilla development. The bird rises from the ash like a Phoenix — a reference to the original name of the Mozilla Firefox browser (known as Firebird at the time this verse was written). The bird casts down “fire” and “thunder” on the “unbelievers”, which is a direct reference to the Mozilla Firebird (now Firefox) and Mozilla Thunderbird products, which became the main focus of Mozilla development a few months before the events of July 15. The fact that the beast has been “reborn” indicates that the spirit of Netscape will live on through the Foundation (which is made up mostly of ex-Netscape employees) and its strength has been “renewed” as the foundation is less reliant on AOL (who many feel neglected Netscape). Again, the “Mammon” is probably Microsoft, Mozilla’s main commercial competitor.

You can find a better explanation on each verse on the Wikipedia site.

source Wikipedia and Labnol

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Catergories: Internet, Open Source, Technology Tags: FireFox, Mozilla