XUL - The Name

The Name

The name "XUL" references the film Ghostbusters (1984), in which an ancient Sumerian deity called Zuul possesses the character Dana Barrett (played by Sigourney Weaver) and declares, "There is no Dana, only Zuul". Since XUL, like MXML, uses XML to define an interface rather than a document, its developers adopted the slogan: "There is no data, there is only XUL". Hence the XML namespace URI at the beginning of every XUL document:

The linked document displays the slogan in large letters in the center of the screen.

"Keymaster" and "gatekeeper" also refer to elements of the Ghostbusters plot-line. (Other references to Ghostbusters also occur within Mozilla products: for instance, the JavaScript debugger component is called Venkman, after one of the main characters in the film.)