Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Friday 18 March 2005 07:14 pm, Greg London wrote:
> drew Roberts said:
> > I appreciate the answer, but could you actually answer the question posed
> > first. I really want to know from a technical point. Isn't ROM a piece of
> > unchangeable silicon? Isn't and asic a piece of unchangeable silicon?
>
> A ROM is silicon and other stuff, usually unchangeable.
> A CD-ROM is a thin aluminum disc with plastic on it. always unchangeable.
> An asic is silicon and other chemicals. always unchangeable.
>
Greg,

I know the difference between a CD-ROM and a ROM. I am talking ROM and not 
EEPROMs or even PROMs.

Now, if a ROM is fixed silicon, and an ASIC is fixed silicon, how is one 
hardware and one software? In other words, is it a fake distinction? 
Hardware, software, firmware.

How is a ROM manufactured? Do they use masks? What about an ASIC? What is the 
other one? A programmable gate array?

Couldn't you build a dedicated peice of hardware that acted like MS Office 
but 
had no software per se?

all the best,

drew