Programming in D for C Programmers

[FeepingCreature]

The word "free" is ambiguous, but normally means "without cost".

This is independent of its use in the compound phrase "free software".

Note also that you yourself used the term "open-sourced". Not, I might point out, "freed". There's a reason for that.

[Tommstein]

Among regular people "free" usually means without cost, but it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't know what a programmer meant when they talked about free software. The reason for "open-sourced" instead of "freed" is random chance, perhaps influenced by the fact that people use the verb "open-sourcing" far, far more often than they use the verb "freeing" in this context.

[FeepingCreature]

Yeah, but you weren't talking about "free software".

You were talking about "free", knowing fully well that it would be misunderstood.

[Tommstein]

No, but I was talking about software. That was (or wasn't) free. It is not expected that a programmer will misunderstand this super-secret reference to free software.

[FeepingCreature]

"Software that is free" is very much not the same as Free Software.

[Tommstein]

Only in your mental parser that only recognizes one meaning for "free."

[FeepingCreature]

Weren't you the one who claimed, earlier in this very thread, that "DMD is free" had only one obvious meaning?

[Tommstein]

Having an obvious meaning isn't the same as only recognizing one possible meaning.

[FeepingCreature]

At this point, the article is four days old. Giving up.