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>No matter how saddened or peeved Stallman, Sandy and others are, terms like
>"hacker" and "positive feedback" have long term accepted meanings in the
>mainstream (American) culture that differ from their original meanings.
True, but when a word is still changing, don't we have an obligation to
apply the correct usage in documentation? Most people use "baud" and
"bits per second" interchangably, but I hope any piece of documentation
would use them correctly, despite the common usage.
I just finished a project where I explained "hacker" vs. "cracker" up
front, and then proceeded to use "cracker" throughout to indicate the
criminal types. None of the reviewers, technical or otherwise, expressed
any confusion.
I think that if a word is in the process of changing, we still need to
stick to the correct meaning, and use the opportunity to educate the
reader. After all, that's what we do.
