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0 pointsragebol1y ago0 comments

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

0 comments

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.

bmacho1y 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.

jcranmer1y 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.

umanwizard1y 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.

2 more replies

kbutler1y 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-th...

kelnos1y 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...

willhslade1y ago

Free food? Organic vegetable stew?

ktm5j1y 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.

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