I'm sure AOL wants to use at least Gecko. Have not heard of anyone at Netscape trying (or even wanting) to build parts of Mozilla out of Java.

Of course that doesn't mean there isn't someone somewhere trying it, or an exec making plans...

Since mozilla is based on xpcom, can anyone explain how xpcom might work with and/or in java?

Alan Baratz doesn't know what he is talking about. Actually, none of these Sun middle management people have a clue of what they are talking about. A bunch of them claimed that Netscape was basing its future browser developments on Java when the deal was originally announced...

Who knows, maybe Netscape Corp. is planning to implement its browser components in Java, or some future version in Java. Thats always a possibility, and that browser wouldn't need to be restricted to the Open source requirements in the Mozilla project.

Sun would have a product that ran on its devices (i.e. Java workstations), and AOL would get royalties to that browser, since it most likely will not be competing with Mozilla, which will hopefully gain dominance as a desktop standard. Also, lets not kid ourselves, Netscape does run the show on Mozilla.org, and if the Mozilla.org covers were pulled from Netscape, it might take a while to get the stuff back up and going.

If we look back a couple of months ago, when AOL announced the merger; The media portrayed AOL, Netscape, and Sun, working together as the most likely way for Netscape, and Java to survive.

We'll se what happens. I'll be pushing for Mozilla, though!