The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

[Frank Goenninger]

On 2007-10-01 23:37:28 +0200, Wildemar Wildenburger 
<lasses_weil at klapptsowieso.net> said:

> Frank Goenninger wrote:
>> On 2007-09-29 01:27:04 +0200, Damien Kick <dkixk at earthlink.net> said:
>> 
>>> If you were referring to the "free" in "free Mumia Abu Jamal", I would 
>>> agree with you.  I don't think anyone would imagine that this phrase 
>>> meant that someone was going to get Mumia Abu Jamal gratis.  Like it or 
>>> not, "free software" referring to "free as in beer" is probably the 
>>> most common interpretation of the phrase for a native English speaker. 
>>> Admittedly, I do not have a "scientific" survey handy.  However, I just 
>>> asked my wife--who has absolutely no interest in anything related to 
>>> programming, has never heard of the FSF, Eric Raymond, nor the 
>>> disagreement between those two camps, nor probably will she ever have 
>>> an interest--what she thinks I mean when I say "free software".  After 
>>> getting over the "why are you asking such a stupid question" phase, the 
>>> first thing that jumped to her mind was "free as in beer".  You can 
>>> stamp, growl, swagger, spit, curse, and bluster all you want on this 
>>> point, but millions of English speakers are going to ignore you anyway. 
>>>   Lucky for most of them, they do not have to suffer the lectures of 
>>> sociopolitically motivated language mavens trying to "correct" them 
>>> from the error of mistaking the meaning of a phrase to be the normal 
>>> meaning of that phrase.
>> 
>> Fully true for non-native English speakers as well. Just did the "wife 
>> test" also - she is a pure software user - and yes, free is "no money, 
>> do what you want" and that's it.
>> 
>> I *never* use the term "free" if I don't want to imply "free beer" 
>> (which is a Good Thing and as such highly valuated - ask any Bavarian). 
>> Using "free" as by FSF or any other lawyer-style 6 pixel font printed 
>> phrasing is pure perfidiousness.
>> 
> I appearantly missed a lot of that conversation, but what is your 
> point? While I agree that the word "free" implies "free of monetary 
> cost" to many people societies, that is by no means set in stone (talk 
> to native americans, blacks, jews, palestinians, etc. about the word 
> free, see what they have to say).
> 
> But that aside: The word free with respect to the FSF and GPL have a 
> perfectly well defined meaning. People may misunderstand that from not 
> knowing the definition but that doesnt make it any less well defined.
> 
> Again, why this discussion?
> /W

Well, I didn't start the discussion. So you should ask the OP about the 
why. I jumped in when I came across the so often mentioned "hey, it's 
all well defined" statement was brought in. I simply said that if that 
"well-definedness" is against "common understanding" then I don't give 
a damn about that clever definitions. Because I have to know that there 
are such definitions - always also knowing that free is not really 
free. It is such a good subject to discuss over and over and over 
without ever reaching any conclusion or resolution because neither FSF 
nor GNU nor the FREE as in FREE BEER defenders will change their mind. 
So, wasting bandwith is the only real effect ... And hey, it's Usenet, 
so wasting time and bandwith is part of the game.

Again, why this discussion - ah - I don't really know...

;-)

-- 
  Frank Goenninger

  frgo(at)goenninger(dot)net

  "Don't ask me! I haven't been reading comp.lang.lisp long enough to 
really know ..."