zcip does the address assignment part of Rendezvous/Zeroconf. For use in Ad-hoc networks where there is no DHCP or other server to assign an IP address.
howl provides the next stage up in Zeroconf - multicast DNS support. This is used to locate servers and services on the local subnet, again in an ad-hoc way, without a managed network.
howl is aiming to become fully GPL: http://lists.porchdogsoft.com/pipermail/howl-users/2004-June/000221.html But I think currently contains portions on Apple APSL code. There are already Debian packages for howl available here: http://interreality.org/software/debian/howl.html But it would be great to have howl available as part of main Debian. nick.
