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Comment by ville | Hacker News Reader

Free as in free beer, not as in free speech.

Just give it up, and call it "liberated software" or something. Language is defined by usage, and no one outside the FOSS community thinks that's what "free" means. (And while we're at it, the media is never, ever going to adopt the word "cracker" either.)

free fre·er, fre·est, adverb, verb, freed, free·ing. adjective 1. enjoying personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery: a land of free people. 2. pertaining to or reserved for those who enjoy personal liberty: They were thankful to be living on free soil. 3. existing under, characterized by, or possessing civil and political liberties that are, as a rule, constitutionally guaranteed by representative government: the free nations of the world. 4. enjoying political autonomy, as a people or country not under foreign rule; independent. 5. exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted.

lit·er·al·ly

1. in a literal manner or sense; exactly.

2. used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.

Words are literally defined by how they are actually used by humans over time. If I hold up a sign saying "Free Donuts", no one is going to think I mean that pastries should be liberated. To unnecessarily cling to the word "free" when it has a more obvious secondary meaning is to tilt at windmills; there is no shortage of synonyms.

If there is one argument it's impossible to win, it's an argument with people trying to impose their own "original" or "traditional" word usage over the more colloquial understanding of it's meaning.

If I say "A free bird", it's quite dubious if it is a free bird as in the beatles song, or if i'm giving away caged birds with no cost.

The two meanings are quite common in the english language, it's not a pedantic invention of the FOSS community to make this distinction.

It's not even free as in free beer, it's free as in a "all you can drink buffet", it's only free for those who already paid the entry ticket.

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