Re: Fresh start? Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities

On Thursday 27 December 2001 04:13, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
[...]
|  For example does it need to be available in one free browser for each 
|  platform?
| ... does it need to be available for at least two years? 
|

Now we should clarify what word "free" means.
Is it "free as speech" or "free as speech and beer"?

some guidelines:
* is Opera browser free?  (my opinion: not)
* is Java free? ( my opinion: not, none of Linux distributions can 
re-ditribute it)
* is Mozilla browser free? (my guess: yes, but not sure 100%)
* is Netscape browser free? (my opinion: not, but you can download it for 
individual use for free, though)
* Lynx is definitly free (and available for more than 2 years)
* Konqueror is free (but only 1 year old)

(sorry for reference to Java here, but IMO it's good example of *not free* 
product while its vendor, Sun Microsystems, claims that it's free)
 
Returning back to Topic.
If we speak about "Minimal Browser Capabilities" - than yes, I think 
availability of at least one free browser (free both as speech and beer) for 
every major platform (say, for every platform with more than 1 million users 
worldwide) is a requirement.  

But: I doubt that you can count Palm or Windows CE/Pocket PC PDAs here, as 
most of them do not have built-in connectivity.
Same is valid about mobile phones. Many of new mobile phones have WAP, but 
providers failed to deploy good coverage for those services, and charge 
enermous amounts of money for their services when available.
So I think Windows, Linux and Mac platforms (probably, Web TV as well) should 
be treated as "major", and should have at least one free browser 
implementation.

-- 

Vadim Plessky
http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE
http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html
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Received on Friday, 28 December 2001 05:03:37 UTC