from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
TANSTAAFL
TNSTAAFL
/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)