[vox-tech] Is Google wrong about the license on ethereal?

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Wed 25 May 05,  3:01 PM, Rod Roark <rod at sunsetsystems.com> 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

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