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SeaMonkey is a free, open source, and cross-platform Internet suite that is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite. SeaMonkey is community-driven, in contrast to the Mozilla Application Suite, whose stable 1.7 branch remains governed by the Mozilla Foundation. The new project-leading group is the SeaMonkey Council.
History
On March 10, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that they would not release any further official versions of the 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.
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.
"ButtMonkey" and later "Seamonkey" were formerly used by the Mozilla Foundation as the code name of the Mozilla Suite itself. The SeaMonkey Council is in the process of trademarking the name, with help from the Mozilla Foundation. It will also use 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.
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