Subject: Re: free software as a delivery vehicle for lisp
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 08:28:17 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3226724912887687@naggum.net>

* William Newman
| Also -- partly to KMP but mostly to the discussion in general -- I still
| think that saying "free software" when you mean "GNU software" is just
| weird. RMS is deservedly influential, but there are limits.  The word has
| preexisting meanings (like libre and gratis). Insisting on an
| idiosyncratic definition which excludes libre-and-gratis software like
| Perl, *BSD, CMU CL and SBCL, X, TeX, sendmail, and so forth doesn't help
| communication.

  This is actually quite important.  The Free Software Foundation has
  garned sufficient "mind share" that some wanted to counter-balance it
  with "Open Source" and now we have sort of a lack of terminology for
  stuff that is available in source form under various liberal and
  draconian licenses.

| If you really want to argue the case, I wish you'd try harder to
| differentiate yourself from classic good-money-after-bad
| protect-the-producer lobbyist scams.

  Please!  Just because you want to pigeon-hole someone does not mean that
  they are doing anything of their own to deserve it.  This is just like
  the annoying reaction to "free bread" that it somehow had to be a
  coercively tax-funded government program.  Sheehs, guys.

| If you don't, it should be setting off mental alarm bells in anyone who
| knows something about special interest policies.

  Acting on alarm bells is different from hearing them.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.