AOL blames Microsoft for that. But I feel AOL surely has its fair share of responsibility. After all, Netscape was number one before AOL laid hand on it.
AOL doesn't "blame" Microsoft for anything. They just made a deal with Microsoft to use IE for 7 years, and probably don't expect the Netscape browser proper to survive that length of time. Frankly, neither do I.
Besides, Netscape was not number one when AOL bought it. The first nail in Netscape's coffin was Microsoft packaging IE with Windows, and Netscape has been losing market share ever since, AOL or no.
That makes me think (a scary thought), what stops a big corporation from acquiring/devouring Perl? The sheer size and diversity of the Internet and the Open Source make it impossible and unprofitable for a single organization to dominate them. But what about Perl? What practical barrier does it have?
What exactly would get "acquired" or "devoured"? Netscape got bought--it was a company (and a limited one at that). Java belongs to Sun. Who owns Perl? I don't think even Larry would claim to own Perl. Microsoft could come up with their own bastardized perl-ish, package it with Windows, or sell it with MSDN stuff. What would that accomplish? There's no notional market share to be lost here.
