12 Aug
2012
12 Aug
'12
1:54 p.m.
On 12/08/12 22:34, Dexter Filmore wrote:
I'm not sure what Bryan means either. I think he may have conflated a couple
of different words:
"husker" -- one who husks corn (removes the outer husk to get to the kernels)
"hustler" -- one who hustlers, a shrewd and unscrupulous person who knows
how to get around difficulties, usually implying that they are a confidence
trickster ("con artist")
The "-ism" suffix creates a noun, in this case, the state of being a
"huskster", whatever that is supposed to be. Hustler?
--
Steven
Am Tuesday 07 August 2012 04:26:05 schrieb Bryan
Baldwin:
I believe that Bryan is making a reference to the practice in the "Wild West"
of the USA in the 1800s, when white European settlers would trade rifles and
blankets to native American Indians.
Of course the rifles would soon run out of bullets and become useless, and
the blankets were often deliberately infected with smallpox.
Bryan is implying that non-free software is a trap: if not directly harmful
like smallpox-infected blankets, it makes us dependent bullet factories that
we do not control.
On 08/07/2012 05:04 AM, Dexter Filmore wrote:
The metaphor eludes my grasp, sorry. Do you mean by this you prefer poor free software
over proper
proprietary?
By this I mean retaining freedom over relinquishing it in exchange for
the technological equivalent of rifles and blankets. This is a
variation of the old and tired bit of husksterism, which
My standard translation sources do not even list that word or similar ones.