Mark Weaver <mdw1982 at mdw1982.com> wrote: > And thats as it should be. Guess I'll need to bone up on > what is and isn't free software. Once again, I will re-iterate my "eccentric" suggestions: - Freedomware (Open Standard, Open Source) - Standardware (Open Standard, Proprietary Source) - Sourceware (Proprietary Standard, Open Source) - Commerceware (Proprietary Standard, Proprietary Source) The Java API itself is an open standard. Sun JRE/JDK is almost Standardware, but should be considered Commerceware (standard with redistribution clause), at least I've never seen the sourcecode of the JRE/JDK. Blackdown JRE/JDK is almost Freedomware, but should be considered Sourceware(standard with redistribution clause due to license). I believe IBM JRE/JDK is CPL (MPL-like) Standardware or Freedomware, depending on source code availablility (clean room design, even if Java itself is under license), but I could be wrong. Open Source MP3 codecs are Sourceware (standard with IP issues). Ogg codecs are Freedomware. I know people think I'm arrogant for suggesting these names, but in my consulting endeavors, several legal departments have thanked me for my suggestions. The fact that I don't stand for the oversimplification of a 1-dimension of "open" and "proprietary" and try to separate them each out into 2-dimensions against "standards" and "source." -- Bryan J. Smith | Sent from Yahoo Mail mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org | (please excuse any http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ | missing headers)