Chad Smith wrote:

> This whole conversation is beyond me.  Java is free, as in beer, it can 
> be used by anyone on any computer on any platform in the world...

Disclaimer: Anything I say could be totally wrong.  :-)

Not quite. It's not even free in /that/ sense of the word. In particular, Linux 
distros are not allowed to include it in the distribution unless the sign a 
deal 
with Sun. And /that/ deal is not free as in beer. So, all the community distros 
(who have no budget) are forced to ship a crippled version of OOo.

> Free as in beer/free as in freedom....  Who cares?

As I illustrated above, there can be significant practical problems with free 
as 
in beer products. That's why free as in freedom really is superior. Free as in 
freedom implies the ability to redistribute. That's something that free as in 
beer 
doesn't give you.

> and it is as crossplatform as OOo (and it certainly seems that way to me),

It isn't actually. It's been ported to GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac. But it 
hasn't 
been ported to other systems that OOo runs on.

> OOo is done 95% or more by *SUN EMPLOYEES*.

80%-90%  Not that the exact number matters. There are 80-100 Sun employees and 
10-20 "community" volunteers.


Cheers,
-- 
Daniel Carrera          | I don't want it perfect,
Join OOoAuthors today!  | I want it Tuesday.
http://oooauthors.org   | 

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