Actually, I know exactly what Free Software is (at least as defined by the FSF): I think you're just using the letter of the definition to ignore the spirit of it. You're conflating not distributing modified versions of released software with not distributing your own software - nothing wrong with that, we all have one-off scripts the universe at large isn't interested in - but there's nothing about that software that's "free" other than your statement that it is - If you decided that you weren't going to release it under the Oracle "We reserve the right to eat your Firstborn " license, the end result would be identical - no one else can run, copy, distribute,study, change, or improve it.

It contributes nothing to the software ecosystem or to society as a whole, which is the entire point of Free Software.

I'm just puzzled that I actually ate a downmod for that post. It's amazing what people take personally on the internet these days.

These days, the word "female" in TFS seems to be showing good success.

I did that for my niece. My brother looked at me like I was Satan incarnate, and instantly developed a psychosomatic limp...

Being unreleased, it doesn't have any distribution license, so one else can do anything with it, so it's not "free software."

Which step is it that installs the customized thermal sensors?

Less reliable than they say, in my case.

Having been in one of those "serious situations," my TDE, according to the common formula I found from just about every resource, was in the high 2000s. My first target was 1800 kcal, and I still either maintained or gained weight. It wasn't after dropping it to 1000 for a month (up to 12 for five months after that) that I started having any weight loss.

Not that I particularly recommend that approach. I lost weight, yes, but I spent six months feeling like a bear with a tranq in my ass.

OMG, just because they all come in the same bag doesn't mean it's monolithic! The chips are separate! If you want to take out one Dorito chip and replace it with a Pringles, you totally can (after using another Dorito chip to grind it down into the right shape).

And I thought it couldn't get any more useless and idiotic than the original Bechdel test!

Learning something new every day!

Which was unrelated to the FCC's Title II regulation: "the government" is not one big, monolithic entity.

The government also continued to interfere after Ma Bell was broken up, and even after ISPs were re-classified as Title I communication services: every time they laid new cable or fiber. There is no internet access without government action - none of the providers are going to arrange land use/rental agreements with every property owner, so the only reason it's even a thing is because of the government exercising its "easement" (eminent domain) powers.

Then explain

array_search($needle, $haystack)

Bad coders are irrelevant to the fact that PHP is objectively and measurably bad in design and implementation. It started as a toy, and that pedigree still shows.

Not only is it still the mess of internal inconsistency, braindead weak-typing and promotion, and anemic text support, but there's some amazing -- I mean brilliantly, awe-inspiring, mind-boggling -- idiocy in some of its baked in APIs: LDAPs ldap_list() vs ldap_read() vs ldap_search() all perform the same operation but with different scopes, none of which are particularly clear from the function names. Others are incomplete in spite of being for mature protocols: good luck getting a CERT record from a DNS server. And then you've got ones like OpenSSL which combine both into a nonsensical mass of mental anguish that, fortunately, is actually utterly pointless to use anyway because there's no functionality regarding certificate revocation, making the whole thing one big tumor of futility.

We also had no competition for decades. It had nothing to do with regulation, it was because Ma Bell was the only game in town (FSVO "town" approaching "manifest destiny").

That was my take, and what the poster I was responding to said was not the case.

I'm not remotely convinced that those "budding Grace Hoppers" aren't already "having a go." I've worked with more than a few.

I suspect that it's time to update the old saw to "Those who can, do. Those who can't, cry about 'oppression' on the internet."