Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr> writes:
> This was very often written in that thread but it is wrong. To be
> stored on a FTP server or burned on a CD, you just need to be
> digital. You do not need to be software. The Bible does not become
> software once you type it in vi or Emacs.
>
> [This confusion between "software" and "digital" seems very prevalent
> in Debian. I share Mathieu's regrets about it.]
Perhaps people who aren't native English speakers have learned the
wrong definitions?
Software is distinguished from *hardware*, and thus refers to bits as
opposed to atoms, and it is irrelevant what the particular bits
represent.
Of course in the early days of computing, most the only software on
computers consisted of programs, and so a lot of people got confused.
Thomas
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