SeaMonkey is a free, open source, and cross-platform Internet suite that is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite. Based on the same source code as the Mozilla Application Suite, SeaMonkey consists of a Navigator which is a descendant of the Netscape family; a Mail and Newsgroups client program, and an HTML editor, or Composer program. The development of SeaMonkey is community-driven, in contrast to the Mozilla Application Suite, which until its last released version (1.7.13) was governed by the Mozilla Foundation. The new project-leading group is the SeaMonkey Council.

History

On 10 March 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that they would not release any further official versions of Mozilla Application Suite beyond 1.7.x, since they are now focused on the standalone applications Firefox and Thunderbird. However, the foundation emphasized that they would still provide infrastructure for community members who wished to continue development. In effect, this means that the suite will still continue to be developed, but now by the SeaMonkey Council instead of the Mozilla Foundation. SeaMonkey 1.0 was released on January 30, 2006.

The SeaMonkey Council, which is the team responsible for project and release management, currently consists of Mark Banner, Christian Biesinger, Karsten Düsterloh, Robert Kaiser, Ian Neal, Neil Rashbrook, and Andrew Schultz.

Naming

To avoid confusing organizations that still want to use the original Mozilla Suite, the new product needed a new name. After initial speculation by members of the community, a July 2, 2005 announcement confirmed that SeaMonkey would officially become the name of the Internet suite superseding the Mozilla Suite.

"SeaMonkey" was formerly used by Netscape and the Mozilla Foundation as a code name for the never-released "Netscape Communicator 5" and later the Mozilla Suite itself. Originally, the name derived from needing a nicer word instead of "ButtMonkey" winning a contest for it and chosen with reference to Artemia Salina Brine shrimp. The SeaMonkey Council has now trademarked the name with help from the Mozilla Foundation.^[2] The project uses a separate numbering scheme, with the first release being called SeaMonkey 1.0. Despite having a different name and version number, SeaMonkey 1.0 is based on the same code as Mozilla 1.8.

The choice of "SeaMonkey" as the official name of the follow-up project has drawn criticism from some long-time users and testers of the Mozilla Suite, as many would have preferred the continued use of the name "Mozilla" or "Mozilla Suite". However, the Mozilla Foundation has stated that the name change was necessary in order to differentiate the new independent product from official products of the foundation.