Re: Building An Apple ][ Software Archive

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 23 Sep 2000 15:59:47 +0200, pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)
wrote:

>In article <39CC235D.B9DBC394@inetnebr.com>,
>Roy and/or Janet Miller  <millers@inetnebr.com> wrote:
> 
>> Thank you Frank. So Paul, I wasn't wrong, but you were.
> 
>Apparently you assign papal infallibity to Frank.  Note that he
>gives no reference whatsoever for his definition of "freeware",
>he merey expresses his opinion.

Perhaps you missed the URLs that Frank put at the beginning of his
post.  The first one was:

     http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/f/freeware.html

Which stated:

     "Copyrighted software given away for free by the author.
      Although it is available for free, the author retains the
      copyright, which means that you cannot do anything with it
      that is not expressly allowed by the author. Usually, the
      author allows people to use the software, but not sell it."

The second URL was from the International Freeware Authors Association
web site at:

     http://members.tripod.com/ifaa/what.htm

Their definition of Freeware is:

     "Software that can be used by anyone on their personal or
      business computer that does not require any currency to
      register. Freeware does not contain constant reminders to
      upgrade to a "PRO" version, nor is it "limited" in
      functions or time that a user may use it. 

      In simpler terms, once a user gets his or her hands on it
      they are free to use and abuse the program for as long as
      they want, the only restriction on them, should be that
      they do not reverse engineer it, or try to pass it off as
      their own work."

By the way, what differentiates software that you classify as public
domain freeware from software that is classified as public domain?

Something that is public domain is not owned by anyone so it is always
freely distributable and people are free to do anything they want with
it so why bother tacking on the word freeware to the end of the
classification?  It is completely redundant.  As it is redundant, and
in my mind quite ridiculous, to use the term public domain freeware,
that only leaves your term of copyrighted freeware, which is the only
kind I've ever heard of, the word copyrighted is then redundant as
well because there is no such thing as public domain freeware so that
classification can be shortened to freeware.

Next you'll be trying to convince people that there is such a thing as
public domain shareware.  :-)

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