Rightly suspicious of an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy, French Wi-Fi enthusiasts have broken with an emerging wireless standard.

Actually, it's not any technical standard they object to, but the emerging "warchalking" terminology, by which enthusiasts alert the public to open access 802.11 networks. The French prefer not to use the unlovely term "warchalking" to describe these notations, but have instead coined a far more preferable alternative. It's "Le Craiefiti", and you can read about it here, or download the PDF[154k] here.

We hope it catches on. There are occasions when almost anything is preferable to the English language, as twenty years' of confusion over the meaning of "free" software (speech! beer!) proves. Although why the French can't do the decent thing, like everybody else and become a huge American shopping mall (and occasional USAF landing strip), we really don't know. ®