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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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There is no one with the authority to make that determination.
"Free" as in "no fee" has been heavily used the entire time people have tried to steal the definition to only apply to license terms, it has always been objectively correct, and it is literally impossible for it to ever not be objectively correct.
And yet here you are, using “literally” to mean “figuratively.” Excuse me for not accepting your linguistic authority on the immutability of other words.
No, I absolutely am not. There is no path to any future where someone will be wrong to use the word "free" to describe software that doesn't cost anything.
Meanings fall out of use (which hasn't happened here) They don't become invalidated. They're not capable of becoming invalidated.
Whether or not its "invalid" isn't the point. Those are the accepted terms by most people, especially those in the industry. The point of language is to communicate ideas.
When most people say "free software", they're talking about software that's free as in freedom. Using it otherwise just causes unnecessary confusion.
If by "most people" you mean the general population, you are absolutely wrong. Hell, even software devs (at least in the US) would fight with you unless they themselves are interested in FOSS.
When the average Joe pays nothing for an item that they want, regardless of whether that item can be modified, they will say that the item is free. To your average Joe, software is yet another item.
Yeah that's why I threw "especially those in industry".
Either way if you're not writing software then yeah sorry your input matters less on the language we use to describe it.
I'm not gonna walk over to a doctors office and start arguing that the language they use is wrong because it doesn't line up with what I know as a layperson.
It's an accepted use.
There's a reason they disambiguate every time, and it's because "free beer" is exactly as correct.
Correcting someone who isn't wrong always make you the asshole.
Setting aside that doing so is already misleading, you clearly lack imagination if you cannot think of any feasible way for that to happen.
For example, consider a future where use of the phrase when advertising your product could result in legal issues. That isn’t too far-fetched.
They certainly can. A given meaning of a word is invalidated if it is no longer acceptable to use it in a given context for that meaning. In a medical context, for example, words become obsolete and unacceptable to use.
Likewise, it isn’t valid to say that your Aunt Edna is “hysterical” because she has epilepsy.
But more importantly, that’s all beside the point. Words don’t just have meaning in isolation - context matters. Phrases can have meanings that are different than just the sum of their parts, and saying a phrase but meaning something different won’t communicate what you meant. If you say something that doesn’t communicate what you meant, then obviously, what you said is incorrect.
“Free software” has an established meaning (try Googling it or looking it up on Wikipedia), and if you use it to mean something different, people will likely misunderstand you and/or correct you. They’re not wrong in this situation - you are.
That, or you’re trying to live life like a character from Airplane!:
That future isn't possible, because despite all you people lying to claim otherwise, there has never been any point where software exists and "free software" was not regularly used to refer to software that did not cost money, regardless of license. Every single App Store out there uses "free" to refer to propriety software today, because it's free.
Free software has multiple established meanings. There's a reason many are conceding their war on the English language and starting to refer to such software as "libre", not "free", and it's because there has never been any point where they actually dominated the term "free software" like they're lying and telling you they did.
“Free” as an adjective isn’t the issue. The issue is the phrase “free software” being used to refer to things other than free software. And afaict, no app store uses the term ”free software” to refer to non-free software.
The iOS App Store refers to “Free Apps.”
Google Play doesn’t call it “Free Software,” either; they just use it as a category / filter, e.g., “Top Free.”
Your conclusion is incorrect - this is because when used outside of the phrase “free software,” the word is ambiguous. “Software that is free” could mean gratis, libre, or both.
Merriam webster dictionary definition 2D.
That is a definition people use when discussing libre software. The software is under YOUR control. If adobe says "fuck you, you don't get the brush tool anymore" thats it for the brush tool. If gimp gets rid of a feature in the main branch, you can say "no fuck you I like this tool" and can just keep the code base that included it still.
Also you have a rather perscriptive understanding of language, which just simply isn't how language works. Languages evolve over time. Open up a dictionary and see how many definitions are listed as antiquated. Those are definitions that aren't used anymore as they fell out of favor.
Now get off your high horse about how words aren't the same as they used to be or how words are frozen to definitions.
Lol wtf are you talking about? No they don't. Everyone telling them they are wrong is being prescriptive. All they are doing is saying "it's not wrong to use a word according to an incredibly common definition of that word". Which is precisely the opposite of prescriptive.
I'm not opposing people calling that software free.
I'm saying that you are wrong (and an asshole) every single time you correct someone calling any software without a price tag free. Because that definition is also correct, long before some deluded douche tried to lay exclusive claim to it. The "free software can only mean open source" people are the ones ignoring what the word actually means (and has always meant) in the real world. They're trying to own language and take away correct usages to service their own agendas.
Free software meant "no charge" before he pulled that nonsense ideological claim to the word. It meant it after he tried to own the word. And it still means it today. Multiple uses of the same word are fine. Trying to invalidate correct usage is not.