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Re: Debian trademark [was: Debian GNU/w32, may ready to be started?]



On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 09:42:54PM -0800, John H. Robinson, IV wrote:
> if you take a rom, (not prom, not eeprom, not eprom, not .*rom, but a
> ROM) it is nothing but hardware that have certain electrical conduits
> cut into it. it cannot be changed anymore. not without trying to destroy
> it.

Sure. A CD-ROM is just a bit of plastic with some holes burned in to
it too (more or less). A hard disk is just a bit of metal storing
some magnetic fields. CD-ROMs and hard disks both store software
though.

It's interesting that you exclude PROM, EPROM, EEPROM etc. Why?

> it's a blurred line, and _that_ is why it is called ``firmware''  not
> software. not hardware.  firmware.  they make fuzzy terms for a reason
> :)

I agree that it's convenient to have a blurred term. But in all
honesty, most firmware is software compiled or assembled with
the same tools we use for more general purpose software. Firmware
is often called "embedded software" too, for example.


Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>



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