http://gnuherds.org/faq#FS_criteria 5. Which criteria are applied to classify a program, language, protocol, specification, software distribution, etc. as Free or Non-Free Software? For a program, read the Free Software definition to know the criteria. For development languages, protocols, specifications, etc. the meaningful question is whether it is supported by software licensed under any of the Free Software Licenses: BSD, GPL, etc. Can you use it with Free Software exclusively? For software distributions, they must not recommend, promote or grant legitimacy to Non-Free Software. Currently, the types applyed to classify skills are: Free Software Almost-Free Software, only for software distributions. Non-Free Software For example, applying such criteria to Java: The Java technology-skill is tagged as Free Software due to there are free software Java compilers. However the below Sun Java technologies are tagged as Non-Free Software because of the license you have to agree to download them is not a Free Software license. Anyhow, most of the Java Sun technologies are GPL'd. Sun has made substantial progress towards freeing the JDK under the GPL. The IcedTea project is filling in the gaps. Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) Applying it to .NET: Microsoft .NET is tagged as Non-Free Software. Mono .NET is a set of tools under GPL, LGPL and MIT, or dual licenses. It is tagged as Free Software. .NET is tagged as Non-Free Software because of the Mono tools are not 100% complete. Mono does not cover all .NET C# is tagged as Free Software due to there are free software C# compilers. Applying it to some software distributions: Debian GNU/Linux is Almost-Free Software because it contains Non-Free Software BLOBs in its kernel. Debian GNU/Hurd is Free Software because it does not ship anything that is Non-Free Software. Debian GNU/NetBSD is not classified yet. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is not classified yet. Debian is Almost-Free Software. Debian is a general term which refer to Debian GNU/Linux and all Debian ports. The Debian project offers the download of some Non-Free Software packages from its archives and website. Ubuntu is Almost-Free Software because it contains Non-Free Software. Gobuntu is Almost-Free Software. Although Gobuntu's stated policy is to adhere to the Free Software Foundations four freedoms, it presently installs Firefox, which encourages installing non-free plugins. Gobuntu enables downloading of non-free software packages from its archives, and the use of the ubuntu.com domain promotes non-free software. gNewSense is Free Software because it does not ship anything that is Non-Free Software neither work to provide easy access to Non-Free Software. A Non-Free Software BLOB not removed from gNewSense is a bug. The gNewSense's policy is to delete any non-free software found in the Linux kernel or elsewhere in the GNU/Linux system. OpenBSD is Almost-Free Software because although it does not ship anything that is Non-Free Software it provides for easy installation of Non-Free Software through the ports system. Not many packages though: Java and a few others. FreeBSD and NetBSD are Almost-Free Software because provide for easy installation of some Non-Free Software products through the ports system. Besides both contain Non-Free Software BLOBs in its kernel too. Microsoft Windows Vista is tagged as Non-Free Software. Note that not all BLOBs are Non-Free Software, because BLOBs can be data (not compiled source code) licensed under a Free Software license. However, we need to verify that it really is data, because the non-free object code is typically dressed up as data. -- Diego Saravia [email protected] NO FUNCIONA->[email protected]