From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jan 30 21: 6:18 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lariat.lariat.org (lariat.lariat.org [206.100.185.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E4BC14E3D; Sun, 30 Jan 2000 21:06:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from brett@lariat.org) Received: from mustang (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.lariat.org [206.100.185.2]) by lariat.lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA18580; Sun, 30 Jan 2000 22:06:07 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <4.2.2.20000130220321.0409e770@localhost> X-Sender: brett@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.2 Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 22:06:03 -0700 To: "Jonathan M. Bresler" , adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org From: Brett Glass Subject: Re: Excellent Gartner Group report: Debunking Open Source Mythsc Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <20000130000622.7DD7314E12@hub.freebsd.org> References: <200001290632.WAA17774@c62443-a.frmt1.sfba.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 05:06 PM 1/29/2000 , Jonathan M. Bresler wrote: > "free as in beer"....if i drink this here beer (its a Bass Pale >Ale by appointment to her Majesty the Queen), then you can not drink >the very same beer. you could buy another and drink that, but its not >the same bottle of beer. Sort of a paraphrase of the old Buddhist saying: You can never drink the same beer twice. ;-) Seriously: the multiple meanings of the word "free" in the GNU rhetoric are intended to confuse. The word "free" is used as what rhetoricians call a "pivot word;" a subtle switch between meanings of the word in the middle of an argument leads to a fallacious conclusion. "Free software" is, as Richard Stallman might say, a "confusing term which it is best to avoid." ;-) --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message