[stoltzmann]

The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Tanenbaum was a professor there, giving classes on operating systems. So I'd say it should rather be called the VU Compiler Kit.

[skissane]

> The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

It isn’t a “weird translation” - “Free University” is a perfectly valid translation of Dutch “Vrije Universiteit”. You just have to understand the historical background, that the university was so named because it was free from control by State or Church, unlike other universities in the Netherlands at the time of its 19th century founding

[gumby]

My high school was a “free school” in the same sense of the term. Founded 1640 by royal charter.

[frutiger]

According to this seemingly exhaustive list (https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2...), no royal charters were granted in 1640.

[gumby]

That's a pretty interesting list! A lot of interesting entries there, including a couple (e.g. Needlemakers) signed by Cromwell.

Given that it was issued by the privy counsel it is interesting that it has some notable omissions (though how comprehensive can the records be over such a long period, anyway?). I thought at first it might have been limited to charters in the current UK, but it does have the Massachusetts Company (1629), though not Virginia's charter (1606). Has the East and West India Companies, but not the College of William and Mary (1693) -- there are images of that one on the web, though not the signature.

My school was also in the Massachusetts colony, the somewhat pompous Roxbury Latin, 1643, charter 1645 (the unfortunate Charles I). It's been more than 40 years since I clapped eyes on its charter - astonishing they haven't put it online. My memory that it was 1640 was corrected by a bit of web searching.

Really these things are archaic silly relics, like monarchies themselves.

[skissane]

The page linking to the list – https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/royal-charters/list-... – says:

> Please note that the attached list may not be exhaustive – please contact us if you believe any information is missing.

[skissane]

My guess: the royal Governor of an (at-the-time) British colony issued a charter in the name of the crown, and people in that colony called it a “royal charter” since it was issued in the King’s name, but while that kind of thing may pass for a “royal charter” in the colonies, in London it was not considered to be one

[gumby]

I don't know. While looking around to see if I could find my school's charter online I discovered that Harvard never had a royal charter, though at various times they sought one. On the other hand College of William and Mary got one (from the eponymous co-rulers) in 1693.

As my parallel comment noted, there are some notable omissions in that list, quite unsurprising given its thousand year scope.

[skissane]

Wikipedia’s article on Thomas Dudley, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, says he issued one of Harvard’s charters, and provided land and funds for the founding of Roxbury Latin. Since as Governor he was technically the monarch’s representative, I could see why both Harvard and Roxbury might have elided the technical distinction between “chartered by the King’s official representative” (vice regal) and “chartered by the King personally” (regal)

> As my parallel comment noted, there are some notable omissions in that list, quite unsurprising given its thousand year scope.

The only "Royal Australian" body it has is the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI, to which my father belongs), which is the national professional body for chemistry. But, it is missing many other "Royal Australian” organisations, including all the “Royal Australian” medical professional colleges (e.g. the Royal Australian College of General Practice, to which belongs my mother). I know under Australian law, it is illegal to call yourself “Royal” without approval from Buckingham Palace. But, possibly, that approval isn’t technically considered a “royal charter”-since 1946, the Australian federal and state governments effectively control the use of “Royal”, the Australian government sends the paperwork to Buckingham Palace for the monarch’s signature, but the monarch will sign anything if the right person gives it to them. However, that’s out of the Privy Council’s jurisdiction (which is the UK only), so the Privy Council might not know about it. The RACI is on this list, because it was 1934, and that was before control over the use of the word “Royal” was transferred from the British government to the Australian ones, and hence the Privy Council would have processed the application. EDIT: One page on their website notes that getting permission to call yourself "Royal X" is technically a separate process from getting a royal charter, you can have one without the other

Another guess: the College of William and Mary got a letter from the eponymous monarchs approving its use of their names, but the Privy Council doesn’t technically consider that letter to be a “royal charter”, because it didn’t use the right magic code words to count as one

[tobinfricke]

The Wikipedia article suggests that Stallman understood it as "Free (University (Compiler Kit))" only to find out that it was "(Free University) Compiler Kit":

> When Tanenbaum advised him that the compiler was not free, and that only the university was free, Stallman decided to work on a different compiler.

[gpvos]

Free University is a perfectly fine translation, just not much used because of the high chance of misunderstanding. The "free" does stand for free as in freedom, just a different kind of freedom than you'd think of. The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control. By the time Tanenbaum worked there, the religious character was much watered down, and barely noticeable in the computer science department.

[skissane]

> The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control

Abraham Kuyper was a dissenter from the state church (Dutch Reformed), whom he believed had gone astray – after founding VU, he left the state church and founded his own conservative breakaway denomination (the Doleantie) – so although he did want VU to have a Reformed Protestant ethos, he also wanted it to not be controlled by any particular Protestant denomination. As such, the Vrije was meant to denote independence, not just from state control, but also independence from the church control

Somewhat ironically for someone who desired independence from state control, Kuyper later went on to control the state (as Prime Minister)

[gpvos]

Thanks for the added nuance which I missed. As far as I knew, there has always been a strong association, even though not formal, between Kuyper's denomination (the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (GKN)) and the university.

Also ironical that within the GKN, one aspect of his theology was imposed by the synod, leading to a schism - again people fleeing from church control. (And one schism further led to the church I grew up in.)

[skissane]

> (And one schism further led to the church I grew up in.)

If you don't mind me asking, which church is that? Church schisms is just one of those topics that may seem very dry to most people, but I personally find fascinating

[gpvos]

Nederlands Gereformeerde Kerken. We actually re-merged last year with the Gereformeerde Kerken (vrijgemaakt), which were in turn a result of the first schism I described. I find the underlying emotions and personalities (usually the most important!), doctrine and to some extent also the organizational issues quite interesting.