----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Hart" <hart@pglaf.org> On Wed, 24 May 2006, Michael Dyck wrote:
However, if it makes things easier, I'll gladly refuse to acknowlege that statement *now*. A linear growth curve *is* a growth curve, and a pretty ordinary one at that. It certainly doesn't make it impossible to create an ordinary growth curve. But that's just disagreeing with what you said, rather than what you meant.
No, a line is not a curve.
Here we go again. 1 - A growth curve doesn't necessarily curve nor does it necessarily grow. A growth curve can be flat (no change), it can be negative (lose value like my stocks recently), it can be linear (grows at a constant rate) or it can be exponential (what we typically think of as a growth curve). 2 - Just because you don't WANT to include certain periods of PG history in your growth curve analysis doesn't mean no one else can or that they are wrong for doing so. If someone wants to plot growth from the start of PG to present (which certainly seems reasonable to me), then that is a valid growth curve plot. If you want to plot it in the "modern PG era" from circa 1993 to present, then that is valid, too. Both plots need to specify the time frame they are plotting. Since we argued this to death already (as Michael Dyck so nicely linked to previously), can we let it drop now? Josh