Code Rush

PBS Picks

The year is early 1998 and a small team of Netscape code writers frantically works to reconstruct the company's Internet browser. The fate of the entire company may well rest on their shoulders. Facing new competition, sales for Netscape's once world-changing browser have sunk to zero. If this gambit fails, their company, their community and their vision of the future might not survive. Welcome to the epicenter of the new American Dream. Welcome to Silicon Valley.

CODE RUSH, airing on PBS Thursday, March 30, 2000, 10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings http://www.pbs.org/whatson/ ), takes a dramatic, inside look at living and working in Silicon Valley. The one-hour documentary follows bright and quirky Netscape Communications engineers as they pursue a revolutionary venture to save their company. Through the program's verité style, viewers see human and technological dramas unfold in the collision between science, engineering, code and commerce.

Capturing Netscape's most anguished year, CODE RUSH reveals the intensity and volatility of life on technology's edge. The program presents Netscape's radical effort to rewrite the rules of software development by giving away the recipe for its browser in exchange for integrating improvements created by outside unpaid software developers. Viewers enter the Build Lab, where Tara Hernandez, Michael Toy, Jamie Zawinski, Jim Roskind and Scott Collins try to keep the 2,000,000 lines of code that comprise the browser together and functioning. Under immense pressure, the team tries to maintain their cool and ship bug-free code to contributors. Plagued by self-doubt and looming deadlines, each member negotiates difficult compromises. They struggle to decide if deadlines should slip to accommodate more bug fixes or if they can even successfully reduce the number of bugs in the browser. In addition to the pressure to succeed, everyone wonders if this new form of code development will actually stem the tide of competitors.

As the project takes it toll on the code writers, a dull tarnish begins to materialize on the Silicon Valley version of the American Dream. Behind all the headlines of newfound wealth lie all-night work sessions, strained personal relationships, tense presentations to the media and encounters with hungry investors.

CODE RUSH also delves into the eclectic team's personal lives to study the ultimate meritocracy - employment at a high-technology growth company. The program explores such questions as is the life of a code writer - a life counted in dog years - worth it?; how do families handle the demands of their jobs and what does their experience indicate about the increasingly technology-mediated future?

Viewers pass through the maelstrom surrounding the Netscape project and gain entrée to the lives of the code writers. Michael Toy is one of Netscape's early code architects and has reaped the financial reward. However, a devoted churchgoer whose wife home educates their children, Toy agonizes about the endless quest for wealth in Silicon Valley. Scott Collins possesses no college degree, but is one of Netscape's best code artists. Due to the high cost of housing in the Valley, he commutes from Michigan and sleeps under his desk to save money. Jim Roskind grew up in a rough neighborhood in the South Bronx. A thrill seeking rock climber and skydiver, Roskind used his mathematical genius to attend MIT and come to Silicon Valley. Sporting blue hair and gothic attire, code writer Jamie Zawinski vocally supports open source code development - a utopian vision of capitalism.

Throughout the events depicted in CODE RUSH, Netscape competitors and stock market analysts assess how much the company may gain by giving away its browser and wonder if the effort will change the world or fall short of expectations. No matter the outcome, the final resolution will impact the world well into the next century.

Credits

Co-producers: Winton duPont Films, San Francisco and KTEH San Jose. Producer/director: David Winton. Executive producers: David Winton, Frank duPont and Robert Ross. Executive producer for KTEH: Danny McGuire. Writers: Gregg Zachery and Jonathan Halperin. Format: CC STEREO

Copyright 2000