I don't know what King Kong or apes had to do with it, but certainly it was a play on "Mosaic killer", with a nod to Godzilla. Mosaic being the first graphical internet browser that Marc Andreessen wrote whilst at NCSA Oh, I just checked wikipedia, and can see where apes came into it. The name Godzilla derives from a combination of gorira and kujiru, which mean gorilla and whale respectively. But Godzilla was definitely a dinosaur (although a bit of mongrel of a species...).
What I remember being puzzled about was that the Netscape folks (they were brand new then, navigator 1.0 releasing just afterwards) at the conference kept trying to explain "Mozilla" as "the Killer APP"... "APP, APE, Get it!?" they would say... but of course it wasn't an ape it was Barney on steroids! So it was clearly an inside joke or a multi-sequitor where the middle links were left out, leaving the rest of us with the sense of a non-sequitor. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
