TANSTAAFL

/tan'stah-fl/ (From Robert Heinlein's classic "The

Moon is a Harsh Mistress") "There Ain't No Such Thing As A

Free Lunch".

Often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of using

an unpleasantly heavyweight technique, or at the poor

quality of some piece of free software, or at the

signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet newsgroups.

"What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back end

to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you

know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high

concentration of science-fiction fans and political

libertarians in hackerdom.

[Jargon File]

(1995-02-28)