Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Gratis and libre

So Jesús M. González-Barahona has discovered evidence to suggest that I am in fact a legend after all.  Apparently, in the context of free software, I may have been the first person to use the Spanish words "gratis" and "libre" to distinguish between the two meanings of the English word "free".

(Background:  The Free Software Foundation uses the word "free" but they mean "freedom", not "zero-cost".  This ends up being a constant source of confusion.)

I had completely forgotten about that USENET post until I got email from this gentleman a couple of days ago.  Now I'm wondering what else I might have done that I forgot about.  If anybody happens to find any evidence indicating that I was actually the person who invented something like Hypercard or VisiCalc, please let me know.  :-)