RE: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Drew Adams]

> My opinion is that Emacs is a product,

Certainly.  It is produced, by labor.  It doesn't
fall from the sky.

> and it is software commodity as well. 

No, not really.  A commodity is something that's
produced for sale.

And a common connation of "commodity" is something
that is run-of-the-mill, as opposed to specially
produced (even if for sale).

> It has been sold for money in past through GNU
> project, which is totally alright, and is probably
> sold even today, I just don't know where.

GNU Emacs is not produced for sale, and it's not,
in general, sold.  Generally, it's not a commodity.

If someone sells GNU Emacs then yes, in that case
it could be said to be a commodity.

But as a general characterization that's not true:
Emacs is not produced for sale.  That's not why
it's produced, and selling it is not typical.

In particular, because in its usual form it's also
provided for free (no sale).  If someone sells it,
they likely sell some specialized version of it,
or they sell something else along with it, such as
support services.

Citing synonyms for "product" doesn't suffice, as
a product can be, and most often is (in a market
society), a commodity.

Synonyms describe usage, and they're often given
liberally, intended to include more than draw
distinctions.  Why?  Because people often look to
a thesaurus for a word that means something similar.
Often they're looking for a given word that they
can't quite think of.  Whether the word they're
looking for really means the same thing, or very
close to it, doesn't always matter.  The point is
to help them find that related word.

One shouldn't look to a thesaurus imagining that
a list of synonyms it provides are really exact
synonyms, or even very close.

(And no two words are ever precisely synonymous.
Every word has its own connotations.)