On Fri, 04 Apr 2003 00:05:47 +0200 Branko Collin <collin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Perhaps you two are using different meanings for 'amateur': one being > 'unpaid', the other 'low-quality'. Of course, in the old days, > amateur meant 'noble', 'high-quality', because an amateur was > something who did not need to do something for a living. The word > 'amateur' had a similar meaning that 'hacker' does among hackers. Actually, it was a very implicit reference to the original roots of the word. It is derived from a latin root (amare?) that means "to love", like the french verb "aimer". And especially when you see the mess that IT "professionals" can sometimes create, I don't think that amateur is such a negative term at all. greetings, Ernst
