Could they make up their minds? (Score 1)

when the vast majority of your developers are on Netscape/AOL's payroll, and you do something to threaten two important and strategic AOL franchises (instant messenger & ICQ) you probably get an irate call from the dudes upstairs. protestations that one is "separate" from the corporate entity that pays your bills come out sounding pretty hollow...

of course, AOL could allow mozilla to do what it wants to do, but is anybody willing to bet on it? and at what odds?

mozilla may still produce good software, just like msoft produced the pretty good ie5, but i wouldn't say they're independent of AOL or really a part of the open source movement...