VanLUG Email Archive
There is no cause for alarm. The mark is held by a well respected
non-profit organization.
In fact given the many companies jumping on the bandwagon with attempts
to "look open source, but remain proprietary", such a mark is really
necessary. As an example, consider the Metroworks Software discussed
yesterday on this list. Although the company is releasing the source
code and attempting to benefit from an open source development model,
the agreement that you have to sign was ***way more restrictive*** than
the worst shrink wrap licence I have ever seen. In some ways, it's more
restrictive than many employment agreements in the industry.
Freeware is confusing. For instance, I have seen people distinguishing
between "freeware" and "free software" as different concepts. Is
shareware freeware? Microsoft Internet Explorer is freeware, right?
There is also a lot of political baggage associated with the term and
many development models and licence types that have proven to be
unsuccessful in practice. It requires too much explanation every time
the term is mentioned.
Frankly I'm tired of reading the fine print of a "freeware" licence just
to find out it would cost me $10,000 per year (I'm not kidding here!) to
use the software.
-Brian