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.