
Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing - falava
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html
======
legulere
I think this is a bit extreme trying to change words to adhere to your own
worldview and makes real discussions impossible. There's nothing wrong e.g.
with speaking about BSD-like licenses, if you don't see a lack of copyleft as
a flaw. This list even kind of reminds me even of Newspeak
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)).

So let me try to find something similar from a different perspective:

Copyleft Free Software: You may not be able to use copyleft licensed code
together with code licensed under a different license. Better words are CDDL-
proprietary or GPL-proprietary. An example in a sentence: ZFS can't be
integrated into Linux because Linux is GPL-proprietary.

~~~
pcl
Yes, RMS's obsession with clever wordplay is really a great example of
Newspeak. It's always bothered me, but I hadn't made the connection to 1984
until you said it. This frustrates me, since he's otherwise fighting a good
fight, but the rhetoric is marginalizing.

A little bit of wordplay is charming, but RMS just takes it so far.

~~~
Decade
Then what alternative would you propose? The terms of the debate have been
defined by totalitarians who themselves use Newspeak to get people to accept
their systems. By disrupting the language, RMS makes dissent thinkable.

~~~
Karunamon
Is this using the RMS definition of "totalitarian", which makes moral
judgements on the _great evil_ of not releasing the source code to _your_
software on _very specific terms_ , or the one used by most of the world in
reference to government institutions?

Much of this is GNU virtue signaling. And it comes off as very pretentious and
off putting.

Example: nobody is ever going to use "SaaSS", because the replacement term
conveys no extra meaning to someone who's not in the GNU in-group. For the
same reason everyone says "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".

Or the idea that "Photoshop" should be avoided _only_ because it's a
"proprietary" name and no other reason. One can imagine the speaker spitting
the p-word as if an epithet.

The "hacker"/"cracker" boat sailed decades ago.

"Trusted computing" as another epithet ignores that such systems can be
engineered to work for, or against the user. If you control your own keys,
you're _ensuring_ that the computer works in _your_ interests and not the
interests of the guy that wrote the malware that just arrived over the NIC.

Most of these re-definitions make the mistake of presuming that human
communication is optimized for complete logical/ideological correctness rather
than efficiency of communication or many other purposes. Imagine if every TCP
packet contained a 1 meg checksum. You've ensured that the receiver got
exactly what you sent, but it took ages and a lot of almost-certainly-
unnecesary noise to get it across.

~~~
Decade
Trying to avoid the weeds that so many other people have argued, so:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t
be doing it in the first place.” - Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and
former CEO of Google.

~~~
Karunamon
And your point is...?

~~~
Decade
You do not win the culture wars by using words defined by totalitarians.
People who have no respect for others’ freedoms.

~~~
Karunamon
You live in a parallel version of Earth I'd like to inhabit if you think the
FSF is winning any culture battles, let alone wars.

~~~
Decade
They are winning battles. Back when they started, nobody thought software
deserved to be free. Bill Gates published a letter where he asserted that
nobody should use Microsoft software without paying Microsoft, and only
Microsoft had the privilege of improving it. 30 years later, Microsoft
releases a lot of stuff under the Apache 2.0 license. If you were not
connected to the past, you would not recognize how huge this is.

~~~
Karunamon
And yet, Microsoft's releases are done under APL2, not GPL. I'd argue that
that the FSF is culturally irrelevant - the hacker mindset (and so the sharing
one) would exist with or without RMS.

------
verandaguy
These are honestly kind of ridiculous, and they come off as unbelievably
pretentious. They also lack self-awareness, since they're supposed to avoid
being loaded.

\- As mentioned, verbing "GIMP" can give it at least two loaded meanings which
have _nothing_ to do with the image editor.

\- "Cracker" also has a very, very different and loaded meaning outside of
software.

And holy heck, the whole GNU slash Linux debate has gotten to the point of
mass parody with the "I'd like to interject for a moment" meme. The worst part
of it is that it's easy to argue against this point because there are Linux
systems out there which don't necessarily use the GNU toolchain. The statement
tries extremely hard to generalize the idea that Linux is irreparably crippled
without the good graces of the GNU toolchain.

Ugh.

I want to push for the adoption of free and open source software and hardware,
and I really do care about the ability to see the internals of, and tinker
with, and break, and then fix the stuff I run in my day-to-day, but this kind
of article makes the FOSS community (the free community especially; but the
OSS community by extension) look bad by imposing this image of snobbishness
and obsession over honestly minute details.

The movement to popularize free software and hardware won't be won by making
people stop calling digital audio players "MP3 players," when it's an accurate
term for an overwhelmingly large part of the digital audio player market.

~~~
dsp1234
While I have no opinion either way, the argument for GNU/Linux is not due to
using the GNU toolchain. The argument is that it's the GNU userland and Linux
kernel, thus GNU/Linux.

There are very few (just android?) distributions that don't use the GNU
userland[0].

[0] -
[https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html)

~~~
gregmac
Not according to this article:

> The operating system in which Linux is used is basically GNU with Linux
> added.

I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system".

And anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this argument is anyway. Why stop
at the GNU userland? An OS with only GNU userland and the kernel would be
nearly useless, so there's a lot more to it than that.

"Please stop saying GNU/Linux. It's really KDE[1] with some GNU programs and
Linux kernel tacked on".

"Please stop saying KDE/GNU/Linux; your OS is really just Firefox[1] with some
other apps, utilities and a kernel somewhere underneath."

[1] Insert your favorite desktop/shell/browser if appropriate.

~~~
verandaguy
Thanks for following up with the point that these things could stack almost
indefinitely. It's hypocritical to put GNU at the forefront when, obviously,
the kernel alone would be totally useless except as a portable-ish interface
to talk to hardware and process syscalls with very little abstraction.

\-- Sent from my <textarea>/HTML/Hacker News/Gecko/Firefox/GNOME/GNU/Linux

------
sverige
The perpetual problem of this ideology is that so many people have "wrong"
thoughts and speech. I'm surprised only that the list doesn't include a
narrower redefinition of "freedom" to mean "free to agree with our
definitions."

~~~
mhink
I don't really see it as that much of a problem, to tell the truth. Every
company with a marketing department worth their salt makes sure to figure out
the "correct" terminology to market their product or service in order to
present a unified message to the outside world. This is very similar, except
the FSF, true to form, is making their terminology (and justification for that
terminology) open to the public.

The other major difference is that they're not marketing a product or a
service, but rather an _idea_, which makes them come off a lot more
pretentious than I think they actually are. Okay, scratch that- a _little_
more pretentious than they actually are. ;)

But I mean, let's also consider that in the market of ideas, the idea of free
software IS, and always has been, under siege by companies who _really don't_
want it to be a Thing. Or at least, companies who have ideas which are only
profitable if free software isn't a thing. If you're going to establish an
organization whose entire purpose is to keep an idea relevant and un-subverted
for a long period of time, it's crucial to come up with practices for "memetic
sanitation".

I mean, look at U.S. political discourse over the last, say, 30 years.
Politicians are experts at this sort of subtle semantic manipulation-
repackaging old ideas under new names, giving disparaging/complimentary
nicknames to existing ideas they want to reject/promote, or recombining names
so that one idea gets mushed up with another in the minds of the public. It's
memetic warfare.

And so, for the most part, I sympathize with the FSF for doing a hard job.
They're playing the game with their cards face-up, and trying to keep their
side of the Overton window from getting dragged to a place which they, and I
myself, believe will cause the world to become a worse place.

tl;dr- if you're not worried about the Green Party's political ideology, you
probably don't need to worry about the FSF's political ideology.

------
ams6110
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means
just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

------
kefka
Nah. I'll keep using Photoshopped, even if it's a name of the ubiquitous image
manipulation program.

What's my comparison? Yeah, that's been GIMPed. Gimp has meanings other than
"Gnu image manipulation program", like talking about handicapped peoples. In
the wrong places, saying it's GIMPed can get you in real trouble.

~~~
episteme
I think the implication is that we should say something akin to "the photo has
been edited", not just replace the verb with a free alternative to Photoshop.

~~~
warkdarrior
"Photoshopped" usually implies the photo was edited with the intent to
deceive. Regular editing (e.g., removing red eye) is not malicious.

------
Frondo
I don't imagine the FSF has really spent a lot of resources on this page, so
it isn't really troubling in the sense of "so much effort, what a waste," so
it's more of an amusing, "not much effort, but what a waste".

Those sorts of language changes happen, and it's just never worth fighting
for. Especially hacker vs cracker, that one was lost a long, long time ago.

Several of these fit into the same mental territory as genericized trademarks,
i.e. digital audio player instead of mp3 player, or Kleenex-brand facial
issues instead of Kleenex, again, not worth fighting for.

And several of these carry political loading of their own (e.g. don't say
"theft"), as well as that perpetual lost cause, GLAMP.

Oh well. Happily the FSF does a lot of other good work.

~~~
vizeroth
It's not necessarily that the FSF spends a lot of resources on this page, but
that Stallman appears to spend a lot of his time and resources on the issues
that are repeated throughout this page (or the whole "Philosophy" section of
their website). In some ways, it's good to have someone like Stallman around
to remind us that there is another way to look at some of these things, and to
push the political debate.

One of the biggest issues in my mind is that the GNU camp likes to expropriate
words with established meanings, then attempt to categorize everyone else's
use of the words as inappropriate. However, that is only a part of the in-
fighting which tends to occur between the "free" and "open source" software
movements and helps to marginalize them in the eyes of the layman.

------
kristianc
Can't help but feel that this would carry more weight if RMS did not do his
thing or redefining perfectly good words to match his ideology - which I
noticed is done here again with 'Service as a Software Substitute'

------
lmkg
Let me voice a dissenting opinion: I don't mind this nearly as much as other
people do.

Entities invested in intellectual property have tried, and largely succeeded,
to influence what terms people use to describe intellectual property. They do
this because it's an effective way of affecting public opinion, by anchoring
certain concepts against other concepts (it's more effective on people who
don't have a strong opinion, which for copyright law is the majority of
people). It's a common and useful marketing tactic.

RMS is observant enough to see this happening, and recognize that it is one of
the battlefields of public opinion. He is trying to counter it. And he is
doing it in an open and transparent fashion, unlike his opposition, which
unfairly opens him up to criticism.

The main problem I have is that terminology seems to be the main front where
RMS focuses most of his efforts. He spends more time on pedantry and very
fine, subtle arguments about distinctions between different types of abstract
freedoms. So much that actual messaging becomes a secondary priority, to his
detriment.

------
br_smartass
I'd like to point one thing: ever since I started getting more interested into
etymology, I've sort of fallen in love with words, and came to see them as
much more alive and powerful than before, and I've started to care much more
about their weight, their truthiness, their application, etc, so that I'm
precise, and of course I also started getting more annoyed when I see them
malapplied. I sometimes think that nothing made me feel smarter and sharper
mentally than etymology(like the same effect history, logic, philosophy has,
but maybe a little bit more fundamental), the _confusing_ there is not just
"this is bad!", if you're using confusing words your thinking gets less clear,
lies pass through, making sense of things is harder, more error-prone, etc.
When you start to notice things this way, a lot changes. And we sort of have
to defend ourselves from the tonnes of bullshit we're shot with everyday. So,
yeah, I think this shit is real. Of course changing your vocabulary entirely
can feel a bit extreme, but still, KNOWING words are loaded or confusing, or
just marketing, or plain lie, plain propaganda, plain politics, is useful.

RMS of course cares much more about truthiness than he does what others think
of him(and he was right before, remember it?). If one puts 'self-awareness'
above 'truthiness' in their mind, it's no wonder they'll think this is weird,
eccentric, etc. The cool thing about Truth, though, is that it's way above
vanity and opinion. The former scratches the later two, the opposite, not so
much or not for very long.

------
cguess
"The term “creator” as applied to authors implicitly compares them to a deity
(“the creator”)."

I... don't... know... where... to... start....

~~~
JdeBP
That's because you are not a deity, obviously. (-:

You could start with a capital "c" ("the Creator").

------
KittiHawk
"Please don't spread this mistake. People who break security are “crackers.”"

No, no, no. "crackers" has its own sordid baggage.

~~~
kefka
Hmm. I've always taken the recent hacker/cracker as the following:

Hacker: One who breaks into computer systems or networks one does not control
or have access to.

Cracker: One who breaks into software and firmware on their devices as to gain
control of root over their machines. This may be in contention with the
arbitrary licenses they may have agreed to prior to installation or purchase.

~~~
flyingfsck
I bet kittihawk is talking about the usage of cracker as a derogatory term as
it regards to white people:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(pejorative)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_\(pejorative\))

------
droopyEyelids
This page is a succinct introduction to the important concepts of free-
software thought and GNU ideology, regardless of what problems you might have
with the actual definitions it supplies.

Try and understand the different culture before condemning it all!

~~~
WhatIsDukkha
I agree.

It's definitely the worth the time to actually read it.

Sadly the title of the page predicts what most people commenting seem to have
done -

Skimmed, got triggered by a word or a turn of phrase and came to type their
first objection really quick.

------
dijit
Agree with the Cloud one completely, but then again my laptop is adorned with
the "There is no cloud; it's just someone elses computer" sticker so I'm very
biased already.

When I saw the topic and the URL I was taken back to the coreboot fiasco, and
I was sure this was related.. but no, it's just a load of recommendations on
changing language that nobody will follow. And mostly there is strong
justification for not following, even if GNU/FSF had a huge following.

Who on earth wants to replace "Photoshopped" with "GIMPed" or "digitally
manipulated", it's not going to win friends with suggestions like this.. even
if I see their point.

------
dolzenko
> The term “WC” has been suggested for a computer running Windows. LOL

------
lovich
A little offtopic, but could someone explain to me what the free software
philosophy as espoused by Stallman/GNU is doing that is both good AND separate
from the open source movement? Everytime I have seen the differences
highlighted, it's been in some condescending article like this from GNU
themselves where they are telling everyone how they are thinking wrong. I'd
really like to know what the benefit of their philosophy is that isn't shared
by the OSS movement

~~~
Decade
Well, there was this last month:

[https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-not-
free-s...](https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-not-free-
software)

------
Flimm
The very confusing term "free software" isn't on this list, and that fact
speaks volumes.

~~~
smu3l
There's a whole page[1] dedicated to defining "free software" in the same
Philosophy section. Of course that page also defines the "copyleft" pun which
is loaded and confusing on its own.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

------
BurningFrog
Thinking about what words to use is worthwhile for any language user.

Obsessing about it at this level, and trying to cram so much meaning into
them, is confusing surface with substance.

In the end, a word is just a few syllables some people use as shorthand for
deeper concepts. It can never _be_ the concept.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
Stallman wants "GLAMP" instead of "LAMP" for the stack, but if someone's
already talking about the LAMP stack, how much of the gnu userspace tools are
they bringing in anyway.

~~~
amyjess
Yeah, once you're committed to the AMP, the first part doesn't matter.

If you ran a LAMP shop, and you told the developers that the company is
switching to BAMP (BSD) or IAMP (Illumos), it wouldn't change the code the
developers write one iota. Honestly, the important parts are "free as in beer"
and "Unix-like" (and you could probably replace "Unix-like" with "command-line
driven" and it'd work just as well).

------
nougatine
Larry Ellison is a software developer? That's news to me. Last time I checked
he was the CEO of Oracle.

------
CalChris
RMS

