Richard Stallman and the Connotations of Language

“Anyone looking for a summary of the free software movement’s
concerns needs only to look at Richard M. Stallman’s essay ‘Some
Confusing or Loaded Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding.’
Behind the modest title, the essay lists all the classic free
software concerns, ranging from insisting on the term ‘GNU/Linux’
for the operating system usually called Linux to efforts to
emphasize the dangers of so-called Digital Rights Management and
Trusted Computing.

“Even more importantly, though the essay never refers to the
term, what unites most of its list is a concern with framing–the
effort to define the terms of a debate to favor one side over the
other…”

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