<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.10.3"> </HEAD> <BODY> On Wed, 2006-22-11 at 00:15 +0100, Mario Vukelic wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> > Because one of Stallman's greatest errors was use of a word -- "free </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <PRE> </PRE> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> That's more a deficiency of the English language I think. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> Richard Stallman is, presumably, aware that he is communicating in this "deficient" language.  He therefore, had he been truly interested in avoiding this problem, should have thought of better wording.  (Of course this is the person who thought "GNU's Not UNIX" was a good pun and that a name that he pronounces as "Guh-New" would be a name that would catch on....) What alternatives could he have chosen?  Well, for openers, he could have been more specific about what was free.  "Free Software" sounds like "Free Beer" to most people, not "Free Speech".  Why is this?  Because software is, in the minds of the overwhelming majority of English speakers, a commodity, not an ideal.  So the version of "free" that would be attached to "software" in the overwhelming majority of English speakers' minds is "free = doesn't cost anything" not "free = liberated".  So he could have used "free" and still been more specific: "free source software" for example, to pick an example off the top of my head. Other ideas he could have used that would be more accurate, more pithy or both: <UL> <LI>liberated software <LI>unencumbered software <LI>anti-proprietary software <LI>restraint-free software <LI>unconstrained software <LI>unrestricted software <LI>unfettered software <LI>open source software (sorry, just had to add that one! <IMG SRC="cid:1164170128.13557.12.camel@localhost.localdomain" ALIGN="middle" ALT=";)" BORDER="0"> ) <LI>emancipated software <LI>freed software <LI>liberal software (in the old sense of the term "liberal") <LI>libertarian software (in what old-school "liberal" had to rename itself to) <LI>unconfined software </UL> There's a baker's dozen ideas that are more accurate and less prone to confusion that I came up with given literally five minutes' (or less) thought.  And I'm not devoting my whole future to a concept that is of overriding importance to me.  I really do think that RMS could have done much better had communicating his idea been higher up in his priorities. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> I'm not a native speaker, but to me "free" clearly seems to mean both things and there is no substitute. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> Here's some other words you might want to look up<A HREF="http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=free&x=0&y=0">:</A> <UL> <LI><A HREF="http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=free&x=0&y=0">http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=free&x=0&y=0</A> </UL> <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0" WIDTH="100%"> <TR> <TD> --  Michael T. Richter Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com MSN: ttmrichter@hotmail.com, mtr1966@hotmail.com; YIM: michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber: mtr1966@jabber.cn "I would not flinch from sacrificing a million lives for India's liberty!" --Mahatma Gandhi </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY> </HTML>