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..a non-GPL project is the one that would be a more a concrete example; I develop in OS/X and Windows and deploy to Apache/PHP/MySQL on Linux. The LAMP part is obviously something that the OSS community has given me, and I am grateful to all of those projects. That said my work doesn't require me to modify Apache, PHP, MySQL or the Linux platform, and in that sense the GPL doesn't affect my work for the worse.

There is another piece of software that I have used in my CMS project (a client wanted a bespoke CMS, I swear I did advise that we should shop around for existing solutions), and in the versions of the CMS I have gone on to sell to other clients. It's Kevin Roth's Rich Text Editor component, a collection of Javascript and HTML, and it is free as in beer, and the source code is visible for all to see. But it is not GPL, and some people have a hard time accepting that this work of art, a gift to the world IMO, could simply be 'free for reuse, anywhere'.

I truly want to be (politely) corrected if I am wrong, but my understanding is if his work were under the GPL, then my work which is incorporating his work, would also have to be GPL.

..a non-GPL project is the one that would be a more a concrete example; I develop in OS/X and Windows and deploy to Apache/PHP/MySQL on Linux. The LAMP part is obviously something that the OSS community has given me, and I am grateful to all of those projects. That said my work doesn't require me to modify Apache, PHP, MySQL or the Linux platform, and in that sense the GPL doesn't affect my work for the worse.

There is another piece of software that I have used in my CMS project (a client wanted a bespoke CMS, I swear I did advise that we should shop around for existing solutions), and in the versions of the CMS I have gone on to sell to other clients. It's Kevin Roth's Rich Text Editor component, a collection of Javascript and HTML, and it is free as in beer, and the source code is visible for all to see. But it is not GPL, and some people have a hard time accepting that this work of art, a gift to the world IMO, could simply be 'free for reuse, anywhere'.

I truly want to be (politely) corrected if I am wrong, but my understanding is if his work were under the GPL, then my work which is incorporating his work, would also have to be GPL.

I was thinking the same thing, then I realized its basicaly a big version of RTE

The google term you are looking for is "rich text",

Here's a free one:
http://www.kevinroth.com/rte/demo.htm
Although it's not particularly hard to roll your own.

Note that I'm primarily urging XHTML as the file format used on the server. Secondarily, I'm urging that people use XHTML/HTML for editing. Note I tried to carefully distinguish HTML and XHTML in my post: The server should send HTML-compatible XHTML to the client's editor, and if it gets HTML it should "clean it up" to make XHTML.

In practice a server could use client detection to use Mozile when suitable, and something like rte otherwise.

It is possible, and has actually been available for some time. I use Kevin Roth's rich text editor. It works in any recent IE or Mozilla based browser. Other browsers should display a normal textarea input.

It is possible, and has actually been available for some time. I use Kevin Roth's rich text editor. It works in any recent IE or Mozilla based browser. Other browsers should display a normal textarea input.

There are rich text editors (Google cache) that are compatible with both browsers.

You'll need to add some additional code to allow for features such as search & replace, but all that'd take is a few lines of ECMAScript/javascript...