[OT] Sapir-Whorfian Advertising Clause (was Advertising clause in license)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Danny MacMillan
> Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 12:45 AM
>
> Be that as it may, the term "advertising clause" seems strictly
> definitive, as it pertains to a clause that refers to advertising.
> That much at least seems obvious from what Nell fgrep'd for.  I
> don't disagree with the substance of your point, but it is counter-
> productive to redefine language to suit one's political agenda.
>

No it is not.  People find it productive to redefine language to
suit their political agenda all the time.

The original term out of the license was not "advertising clause". The
original term, right out of the license, was "acknowledgement"

The GPL crowd found themselves sounding like a bunch of ungrateful
spoiled brats when they originally tried telling people the BSD license
was bad because it "had a clause that required you to acknowledge the
copyright holders"

So, they did a bit of creative doublespeak and came up with the
slur "advertising clause"

Since advertising is associated with commercial activities, this
carried an instant negative connotation in the free software
community.  The GPL bigots didn't even have to explain what an advertising
clause was, the mere presense of the word "advertising" was enough to set
people against the acknowledgement clause.

Notice how just changing the term back to the real term "acknowledgement
clause" removes the negative connotation and lets the truth of
what it really is show through?

You are very naieve if you think that words and phrases don't carry
negative connotations, or by chance are you in the habit of using
terms like "nigger", Danny boy?

The very name FreeBSD was defined to suit a political agenda.  While
you may not like living in a world that uses language as a weapon,
that's the kind of world most people live in, and you better get
used to operating in it.

Ted