On Wed 25 May 05, 3:01 PM, Rod Roark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > On Wednesday 25 May 2005 02:35 pm, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > > Dear all, > > > > According to: > > > > http://directory.fsf.org/All_Packages_in_Directory/ethereal.html > > > > ethereal is licensed under the GNU GPL. But if you do a Google > > search on "ethereal license", Google returns: > > > > Ethereal > > License: Freeware > > According to http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4449.html > > > > And in fact, the majorgeeks.com website does indeed claim that > > ethereal is "freeware." > > > > When push comes to shove, I don't really know what "freeware" > > means, but it sounds like it means "software provided without > > charge, without warrantee, and without obligations placed on the > > recipient of the software". But this is just my guess. If so, the > > GNU GPL is incompatible with the term "freeware" for a number of > > reasons. > > According to www.ethereal.com it is GPL. Yeah. I didn't think that the fsf website would lie about that. ;-)
> You can look up "freeware" in www.dictionary.com and > www.wikipedia.org. I looked it up in both those places (and others), but the definition was so vague that if I said "I understand" I'd be either lying or fooling myself. :) The jargon dictionary is a good place to look stuff like this up too. > It seems to just mean software that is "without charge" and so the term is > rather vague, but is often applied to free-as-in-beer software that is not > OSS. So then you agree that "freeware" is very likely to be GPL incompatible? I was just wondering if "freeware" had a very specific but little known meaning the way that "public domain" does. The Larry Rosen talk at LUGOD was really good! Pete -- Every theory is killed sooner or later, but if the theory has good in it, that good is embodied and continued in the next theory. -- Albert Einstein GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
