My point is that while, yes, terms of art are coined all the time, they don't get authority over plain English by virtue of existing. Sociologists don't get to say, "Well, that's not technically what gender means," when you can open up a dictionary and show that, yes, that is damn well exactly what gender means in English. I mean, yes, they do try to do that, but they don't actually have any authority to do so.
That some wish to draw a distinction from a term of art does not meant that all uses of that term must draw the same distinction or be considered a term of art. English, and indeed all natural languages, support words with multiple, often contradictory meanings. English, being defined by usage, does not care at all about any authority in language.
The words "free software" will essentially forever mean "software obtained without monetary cost" because that's what those words mean in plain English. That's the semantic meaning of combining that adjective with that noun. The fact that a second definition exists where "free software" is a compound word is mostly irrelevant. The fact that engineers have a specific meaning for "shear" doesn't mean I can't call my scissors "shears". That's why so many terms of art are invented whole-cloth and why acronyms as terms of art are so prevalent. It's precisely to avoid that contextual semantic collision that plain English doesn't give two shits about.
> The words "free software" will essentially forever mean "software obtained without monetary cost" because that's what those words mean in plain English.
Well, "software" is a relatively new word, so I'm not sure about "forever" (is software a soft ware?). And within the short lifespan of this word, the term Free Software in the technically accepted jargon has been in use for a really long time (at least early 80s, apparently).
Yes, non-technical people won't understand what "free software", "open source", or "source" means for that matter. They don't understand what a license means in terms of software either. They don't know or care about hacker culture, or the history of computing. That's ok.
Language has meaning within communities. This is our community. GitLab, GitHub, Microsoft, and most HN readers do understand the mainstream meanings -- within our community -- of "Free Software" and "Open Source". This is just like when physicists say a nuclear reactor goes "critical" they immediately understand the term, even when to a layperson it sounds scary and in common language "critical" means something else.
That some wish to draw a distinction from a term of art does not meant that all uses of that term must draw the same distinction or be considered a term of art. English, and indeed all natural languages, support words with multiple, often contradictory meanings. English, being defined by usage, does not care at all about any authority in language.
The words "free software" will essentially forever mean "software obtained without monetary cost" because that's what those words mean in plain English. That's the semantic meaning of combining that adjective with that noun. The fact that a second definition exists where "free software" is a compound word is mostly irrelevant. The fact that engineers have a specific meaning for "shear" doesn't mean I can't call my scissors "shears". That's why so many terms of art are invented whole-cloth and why acronyms as terms of art are so prevalent. It's precisely to avoid that contextual semantic collision that plain English doesn't give two shits about.