On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 08:50, Michael Ryan Byrd wrote: > When people say, "free as in beer" do they mean: > > 1-"you have the freedom to get it, but it will cost you $12.99 for an 18 > pack--like at 7-11" > > 2-it actually costs nothing, (like at a University of Utah kegger?) > > Why do people say that anyway? Is it common to give beer away? That sounds like > a bad business model to me. > > To be less confusing, if they really mean that there is NO COST, maybe they > should say, "Free as in air." I would have said, "free as in water," but there > are growing numbers of morons who buy bottled water (evian/naive.)
They mean #2. The companion of "free as in beer" is "free as in speech". There may be a cost associated with making a speech, such as publishing costs, but nobody can stop you from saying what you think. Obviously it's nice when something is free as in beer and as in speech, such as Debian. The problem with free as in beer is that the beer company may stop giving it away free or go out of business and you have no recourse. Corey ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
