On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 01:22:27PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
snip
If there's a parallel between ICQ servers and hardware, it seems to me
that the ICQ server is like a physical hardware device which requires
no firmware.
If (all) ICQ servers required that I send it a copy, as a bitstream, of
Dune before doing anything useful, then Dune seems like firmware. The client
wouldn't be useful without a copy of Dune (unless some servers don't require
it--eg. hardware devices with the firmware in flash), and I'd expect the
client to Depends: dune, moving it to contrib if it's not packaged or in
non-free.
I'm open to any examples of client/server applications which require
copyrightable non-free bits to be sent to the server by the client, that
aren't as contrived as the above, to aid discussion.
The aim/icq servers do not currently, but could at the flip of a switch
(and have in the past), required you to send a hash of a specified
segment of a specified file from the official (copyrighted) winaim
client. If I am understanding this thread correctly, that would be
roughly the same as a physical device with firmware requirement for the
purposes of this discussion.
this makes it simple, since aim and icq are on the same physical aol
server, and increasingly over time using the same protocol to talk
between the (possibly free) clients such as Gaim (which in fact uses a
single protocol option for both), and the non-free server.
Luke Schierer
[1] compilations of drivers, such as the Linux kernel, may or may not
be different; let's ignore that for sanity of discussion for the moment
--
Glenn Maynard
