[mbrock]

Ethereum (well, Solidity) calls them methods, not functions, and everybody agrees that methods are potentially state changing procedures.

Moreover, there is a staggering amount of precedence for using "function" without implying purity, so even if Solidity did call them functions, that would be entirely normal terminology.

And, well, the entire point of invoking a contract is to effect some change to the state of the blockchain, so it would be strange to expect that Solidity methods were pure functions.