On Sunday, Sep 14, 2003, at 16:23 US/Eastern, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
[This confusion between "software" and "digital" seems very prevalent in Debian. I share Mathieu's regrets about it.]
There seem to be a lot of people interested in, for whatever reason, changing the definition of software. It originally meant the stuff that isn't hardware (hence the term). Most people in Debian, it seems, still use it that way. Possibly most people in the hacker[0] community, as well.
Software does not have to be digital. Personally, I'd consider the data stored in an ENIAC to be software. Do you?
[0] in the original sense, as well --- not to be confused with 'cracker', 'script kiddie', etc.