At 16:45 26/12/03 +0000, Mark Evans wrote:
On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 01:47:58PM +0000, David Bowles wrote:
As far as I can recall the way the spec is worded the reference to e-mail omits the term 'freeware' as an exclusion. Hence Outlook Express is a valid e-mail client.
The spec states "Email: Facility for offline email reading and composition. Freeware or shareware is not acceptable"
What exactly is the meaning of the term "freeware" in this context? Is bundled stuff (e.g. Outlook Express) "freeware"? Is OSS "freeware"? Sure, neither is obtained "in return for a consideration" (as I think the law of contract phrases it), but that still leaves lots of ambiguity. For instance, is a package written (compiled?) in-house really excluded? And if in-house compilation is acceptable, can use of an identical binary be excluded either? OSS is difficult to categorise quite so simply as "freeware" or not, since one usually pays for a distro... Again, what about "ad-ware" like Eudora in "sponsored" mode? "offline" is also ambiguous - is a LAN on- or off-line? If a mail-server on the LAN handles the Internet traffic, then serves the individual mail accounts locally via a LAN, which case is that? Thus, for only an instance, a Linux mail-server, plus Eudora or Pine (and perhaps, however much one may regret it, Outlook Express) might well bypass the relevant definitions entirely... Just a thought. Good networking, Roger Beaumont