concept

It was about a week and a half before the end of March, 1998. The source code was going to hit the wire on March 31st, and though there was a general sense that we needed to have a party, nothing had as yet been done about it.

In one of our meetings, I laid out the plan: rent out a nightclub in San Francisco, invite the world, and broadcast it over the net. ``You mean invite non-employees to the party? But we've never done that before...'' People were incredulous. ``It's a new world,'' I said. ``We're giving away the code. We're sharing responsibility for development of our flagship product with the whole net, so we should invite them to the party as well!''

I did some research, called some friends, and we found that one of San Francisco's largest nightclubs, Sound Factory, was available on wednesday night, April 1st.

I reported back, and was met with what, in the most generous terms, can only be described as pathetic whining. ``But San Francisco is so far away,'' they bleated. ``Why don't we just have a party in the Netscape cafeteria?''

Damn the torpedoes. I was having a party and they couldn't stop me.

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