🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Nov5.230830.14412@midway.uchicago.edu>,
goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:

> Oh come on, guys, stop sending me mail.  Put the flames here for every-
> one to see :-).

Glad to oblige.

> But be sure you understand what I'm saying.  I'm not
> by any means expressing a desire that the FSF go away.  Quite the con-
> trary.  Read my last posting more carefully.
>
> Let me reiterate:  I regard the use of an inappropriate word, name-
> ly "free," as deliberate misdirection on the order of "pro-abortion" for
> "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" for "anti-abortion."  Most aren't really
> fooled, but the gratuitous attempt at obfuscation can be very annoying,
> perhaps indicative of a failure to fess up to the real issues at stake.

Baloney.  I will concede that the "free" in FSF doesn't mean "free in the
meaning preferred by Richard L. Goerwitz".  It probably doesn't mean "free
in the meaning preferred by Ronald Regan, or John Scully, or Attilla the
Hun."  Who cares?

> If the software is not unrestricted, then a different word should have
> been used.  Perhaps "socioeconomically laden."  SELSF:  The Socio-Econom-
> ically Laden Software Foundation.

There isn't and wasn't any intent to deceive anyone and no one, certainly
not you, is confused about the meaning intended by RMS and FSF.  If you
look up "free" in an unabridged dictionary, it has dozens of meanings.
It's a word of plain English, to a technical term of Goerwitz-speak.

I'll use it the way I like, thank you, and I expect others to do the same.

-- 
Charles Geyer
School of Statistics
University of Minnesota
charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu