While going through the current download list for Selenium I came across this text
The Java bindings for Selenium 2, including the WebDriver API and the Selenium RC clients. Download this if you plan on just using the client-side pieces of Selenium "
Could someone please elaborate on what does the client-side pieces of Selenium refer to? The reason for my question is that I am successfully able to start a driver/browser instance on my IDE (IntelliJ IDEA) referring to only the Selenium Server (SS) standalone JAR as the reference/dependency. That lead me to wonder on the purpose of the "client-side" pieces of Selenium.
I am on a local machine "LM" with Firefox browser and I reference the SS standalone JAR as the dependency, then I am able to start a browser instance.
Suppose if I want to start a Firefox instance on a remote machine "RM" (with SS standalone JAR placed). Can I fire up my test scripts from the local machine "LM" such that it starts the SS standalone JAR on the "RM", keeping in mind that I have referred SS standalone JAR in my "LM" test scripts and not the "client side" pieces.