MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-02-16 |
| FROM | Alexandre =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois?= Garreau
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| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] GNU Social Contract version 1.0
|
Le samedi 15 février 2020, 19:12:09 CET Dmitry Gutov a écrit :
> On 15.02.2020 20:02, Andreas Enge wrote:
> > It is an agreement between those who endorse it, evidently. I am not
> > presuming anything else. It is you who write "all GNU contributors",
> > not me.
> Saying "us, GNU contributors" is all too easily taken to imply that you
> represent all GNU contributors. Why don't you choose a better, more
> specific term, as has been suggested multiple times?
No, actually english is what makes that ambiguous (I guess by default it’d
be the same in russian wouldn’t it?). In french, we could have say “Nous,
(des) contributeurs GNU” (but maybe the ambiguity would still stay
there…), or “Nous, les contributeurs GNU” (the ambiguity would be gone),
but in english it’s incorrect to say “us, the GNU contributors” (but maybe
we should start x))… so as long as it can be indefinite, it can be only a
way to *describe* (contingent) the “us” (so just to say the “us” refers to
people who happens to be GNU contributors), rather than to *define*
(essential) it (so the set “us” *would be* the set “GNU contributors”…
which is false, as there are likely too many of them, and likely many of
them are dead, don’t read this mailing-list, far away, or totally don’t
care, etc.).
Sometimes the very existence of plural piss me off. Would be better if
plural didn’t exist, and when you wanted something akin, you were forced
to use any *defined* logical concept (none, some, every/all), or
statistical concept (most, majority, biggest majority (>30%), averages,
medians, quartiles, etc.).
But I doubt, in their position, they’re in favor of more clarity and
precision, quite the opposite, as it *could* benefit them.
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