Re: In praise of Ada Freeware

[dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)]

Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) wrote in message news:<4ajzJ$TMn9o+@eisner.encompasserve.org>...
> In article <e4e97.11449$ar1.33669@www.newsranger.com>, Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> writes:

> Certainly making source available is implicit in Freeware as I 
> described it. 

Well like Humpty-Dumpty in Alice, you can make words mean anything
you want, but you will confuse the issue if you use definitions
different from those generally accepted. Once again, Freeware is
usually used to describe any software which can be obtained at
no charge. A very large amount of this software, the majority in
some environments, is distributed without sources (e.g. many of
the freeware games around, TE/2, and many others). That's why we
don't like people to confuse Free Software (where the availability
of source is key) with Freeware (where source is frequently not
available).

Since source availability is key for you, why not abandon your
confusing insistence on the word freeware, and instead concentrate
on what licenses you would like to see. Most likely these will be
Free Software licenses (not necessarily the GPL, remember that many
licenses qualify as Free Software, including BSD, the Ada community
license, the GMGPL, and public domain).