Re: Open source - Free software

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > I don't think I have an agenda.  I think the posters who refuse to
   > accept that a phrase has acquired an idiomatic meaning beyond the
   > literal interpretation of the constituent words are the ones who have an
   > agenda.  I didn't create this term, and after 20 years it's no longer
   > "new".

   To the overwhelming majority of the people in the world who speak
   english it is not even new but totally unknown.

   If you have spent 20 years of your life in a small group which uses
   the word "free" in another way than it is used in the real world
   outside your little group that is your problem, you can not speak
   proper general english. You have to learn to speak normal english
   if you want to speak to people outside your little "special SFS
   english" group.

So to the overwhelming majority "to be free" means that one is
"without price"? That is quite an interesting interpretation, I guess
that those who wished to be free, really wished to be sold gratis, and
not for a price.

The majority of the populance actually understands the difference
between free beer and free speech.  We use it the word in the later
form, there is nothing strange about it.