4 ms·

I'm not a dog person: a puppy would be a burden (financially and time-wise) and provide me barely any fun.

yathern 2y ago
I think that's the intended implication - that it's "free to a good home" - meaning any new owner takes on a lot of responsibility.
bmacho 2y ago
That's what ’free as in puppies’ mean. Free software is typically described as "free as in freedom" or "free as in free beer". (This is probably a limitation of English tho, my language has 2 different words for permissions and costlessness.) GP above proposes the "free as in puppy" variant, which means that it is a burden of maintenance. I can't recall any real examples for this.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  If you want to be pedantic, English does have distinct words for the two connotations of free--"liberal" and "gratuitous". Although it should also be immediately obvious why those words aren't preferred either: "liberal" also has several other connotations (to the point that a "Liberal Party" could be almost anywhere on the political spectrum), while "gratuitous" tends to lean more towards "unnecessary" than "free of charge" in common parlance.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    > English does have distinct words for the two connotations of free--"liberal" and "gratuitous". Sorry but no it doesn’t. These words have the other meanings you mentioned, but they don’t include either of the meanings of “free”. If you said you were giving away “gratuitous software”, native English speakers wouldn’t know what you were talking about. The only way to understand it would be to realize that those words are etymologically cognate to words in European languages that do have those meanings.
    - prewett 2y ago
      "Gratuitous software" would be excessive and unnecessary software. Which I think a lot of commercial (particularly "news") websites qualify for, and "modern" websites in general. NPM makes it easy to just install something, which requires all kinds of other things, which duplicate each other, etc. Strangely enough, I think the LaTex distribution qualifies, too. I tried to install it recently, and it wanted 1 GB of disk space! That's multiple times the size of the entire system disk when LaTeX was created... Sooner or later a lot of the web is going to run on WASM, at which point we'll have a virtual machine running in a user program running on an OS which incompletely virtualizes the bare machine (hence why we've ended up with WASM). Extra gratuitousity if the browser is an Intel binary being run on an M* processor via Rosetta translation... Maybe eventually we'll realize that the OS needs to provide a full virtual machine, complete with window to draw in, filesystem isolation like Plan 9, etc. But, inertia will probably make it take while.
      - uncanneyvalley 2y ago
        Matryoshka virtualization
      - bmacho 2y ago
        > Strangely enough, I think the LaTex distribution qualifies, too. I tried to install it recently, and it wanted 1 GB of disk space! That's multiple times the size of the entire system disk when LaTeX was created... There is the TinyTeX distribution, which is smaller. (Despite its name, it isn't tiny, or small, or medium in size, but it is also large. But smaller than the default LaTeX distribution with all the possible packages, source code and documents.)
        mickmcq 2y ago
        My impression is that TinyTeX downloads required packages on the fly and can be quite tiny if you don’t use many packages.
        bmacho 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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- kbutler 2y ago
  Free software releases often include the "free as in puppy" implication as a disclaimer of responsibility for the effort you may need to expend to make use of it - "if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces". https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/118717/how-is-the-phrase-when-your-program-breaks-you-get-to-keep-both-pieces-commo https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/118717/how-is-th...
kelnos 2y ago
To be fair, "free as in beer" doesn't work for a lot of people who don't drink (or do drink, but don't like beer). I don't think we're going to come up with a one-size-fits-all slogan...
- willhslade 2y ago
  Free food? Organic vegetable stew?
ktm5j 2y ago
What's your point? Don't take the puppy if you don't want it.. not everyone has a use for this software either.

I think that's the intended implication - that it's "free to a good home" - meaning any new owner takes on a lot of responsibility.

bmacho 2y ago

That's what ’free as in puppies’ mean. Free software is typically described as "free as in freedom" or "free as in free beer". (This is probably a limitation of English tho, my language has 2 different words for permissions and costlessness.) GP above proposes the "free as in puppy" variant, which means that it is a burden of maintenance. I can't recall any real examples for this.

jcranmer 2y ago
If you want to be pedantic, English does have distinct words for the two connotations of free--"liberal" and "gratuitous". Although it should also be immediately obvious why those words aren't preferred either: "liberal" also has several other connotations (to the point that a "Liberal Party" could be almost anywhere on the political spectrum), while "gratuitous" tends to lean more towards "unnecessary" than "free of charge" in common parlance.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  > English does have distinct words for the two connotations of free--"liberal" and "gratuitous". Sorry but no it doesn’t. These words have the other meanings you mentioned, but they don’t include either of the meanings of “free”. If you said you were giving away “gratuitous software”, native English speakers wouldn’t know what you were talking about. The only way to understand it would be to realize that those words are etymologically cognate to words in European languages that do have those meanings.
  - prewett 2y ago
    "Gratuitous software" would be excessive and unnecessary software. Which I think a lot of commercial (particularly "news") websites qualify for, and "modern" websites in general. NPM makes it easy to just install something, which requires all kinds of other things, which duplicate each other, etc. Strangely enough, I think the LaTex distribution qualifies, too. I tried to install it recently, and it wanted 1 GB of disk space! That's multiple times the size of the entire system disk when LaTeX was created... Sooner or later a lot of the web is going to run on WASM, at which point we'll have a virtual machine running in a user program running on an OS which incompletely virtualizes the bare machine (hence why we've ended up with WASM). Extra gratuitousity if the browser is an Intel binary being run on an M* processor via Rosetta translation... Maybe eventually we'll realize that the OS needs to provide a full virtual machine, complete with window to draw in, filesystem isolation like Plan 9, etc. But, inertia will probably make it take while.
    - uncanneyvalley 2y ago
      Matryoshka virtualization
    - bmacho 2y ago
      > Strangely enough, I think the LaTex distribution qualifies, too. I tried to install it recently, and it wanted 1 GB of disk space! That's multiple times the size of the entire system disk when LaTeX was created... There is the TinyTeX distribution, which is smaller. (Despite its name, it isn't tiny, or small, or medium in size, but it is also large. But smaller than the default LaTeX distribution with all the possible packages, source code and documents.)
      - mickmcq 2y ago
        My impression is that TinyTeX downloads required packages on the fly and can be quite tiny if you don’t use many packages.
        bmacho 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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kbutler 2y ago
Free software releases often include the "free as in puppy" implication as a disclaimer of responsibility for the effort you may need to expend to make use of it - "if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces". https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/118717/how-is-the-phrase-when-your-program-breaks-you-get-to-keep-both-pieces-commo https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/118717/how-is-th...

kelnos 2y ago

To be fair, "free as in beer" doesn't work for a lot of people who don't drink (or do drink, but don't like beer). I don't think we're going to come up with a one-size-fits-all slogan...

willhslade 2y ago
Free food? Organic vegetable stew?

ktm5j 2y ago

What's your point? Don't take the puppy if you don't want it.. not everyone has a use for this software either.