Subject: Re: ilisp-mode and HyperSpec search From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/08/20 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3144128620073553@naggum.no> * William Tanksley | No, he's denying that "free" makes much sense when applied in that sense | to inanimate objects. * Craig Brozefsky | Well that's why I included the whole dang definition; we have Free School | for instance, Free Country, Free Church, Free City, Free ships, and Free | Thought, and of course, Free Speech. We have both things, and acts being | prefixed with "Free". Free Software covers both the thing, as well as | the act, or mode of production, so it straddles the two. | | I think that Free Software can indeed be more confusing than Free Man or | Free Country, because your average computer user prolly does not think of | Man or country as being objects of commerce the "cost free" meaning does | not ever come into play. I think it's because in all of the above instances of "Free" you actually refer to _people_ who are free, and that's a much harder leap for Free Software, which is about programmers being freed of the need to ask the author for permission to use their works in any way they like. (now, since Free Software proponents tend to cast everyone who does not agree with their full philosophy as enemies, let me say that I joined the Free Software movement for the wrong reason many years ago: I thought it was about educating people, not about producing "alternative" software. I have since found other ways that are more effective in educating people than relinquishing the author's rights to his works and removing his say in its use. I also think there are better ways to beat the "hoarders", if that is a worthy goal at all.) #:Erik -- (defun pringles (chips) (loop (pop chips)))