From: Lyle Johnson <lyle@...>
Date: 2003-07-12T02:56:08+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Humans and dictionaries (was Re: My brief and torrid aff airwith Ruby.)

John Platte wrote:

> It is an extremely inflammatory term.

sigh.

I am clinging to the belief that you have seen my comments out of 
context, and that's what provoked this response.

Yes, of course using the phrase "pro-choice licensing" when referring to 
the GNU Public License (the GPL) is inflammatory, and anyone who used 
such terminology would have to be just completely oblivious to not be 
aware of the "baggage" associated with it. I was playing off of a 
previous comment made by Sean O'Dell (see 
http://www.ruby-talk.org/75754), who suggested that we refer to the GPL 
as "socialist" licensing since that description would be "less 
predictably anatagonistic" than some other descriptions used for the GPL.

The apparently very subtle point that you and Don missed is that I was 
kidding. Although he hasn't explicitly confirmed it, I suspect that Sean 
was kidding as well when he suggested that the term "socialist" would be 
a good neutral description for the GPL.

For further study, I would recommend Jonathan Swift's classic essay "A 
Modest Proposal" (http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html), in which Mr. 
Swift suggested that the Irish eat their children as a solution to the 
problems of poverty and overpopulation. Here's a clue to get you 
started: Swift was also kidding.