free software philosophy and beer before coffee

[floreal]

"Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer."

GNU says that and what does it mean?

i have drunk 3 beers but already i cant understand!

[ad_267]

Free as in beer means it's like getting free beer. You don't have to pay for it.

Free as in speech means you can do what you want with it. You can get the source code and change it to do what you want and customize it to how you want it. You can also distribute it to other people and distribute your customized version as long as you also provide the source code.

I think you need to drink a few more and it will all become clear.

[saulgoode]

Imagine if I offered you a free beer on condition that you never drink it. Free beer is meaningless unless you have the freedom to drink it.

[mikjp]

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html


mikko

[Methuselah]

Microsoft visual studio express is free as in beer.
GCC is free as in free speech.
You can do anything with it, except deprive others of it.

[Pasto]

It's just a problem with the english word 'free' which stands for two totally different meanings.

[floreal]

thanks for explanations and for suggestion ad_267
i will go on drinking in front of my Ubuntu installed notebook

i think i understand. if you want to drink beer you have to buy it from microsoft-mart, but you really need beer you must call your friends, GPL, Apache and others. You can also talk with them.

During dawn, they may buy you a cup of coffee.

Friends are good!

[ad_267]

If you get GPL beer you get to know how to make the beer yourself and you get an endless supply of beer for you and your friends!

If you get free beer from Microsoft you can only drink your beer at the Microsoft bar and if you want to drink more than half of the beer or you want to drink it from a glass you must pay for it.

[Brunellus]

It's just a problem with the english word 'free' which stands for two totally different meanings.
In Latin-derived languages, the difference is between something that is given at no cost and something which is free from restriction. The former, in Latin, is gratis. The latter is liber (which passes into French and Spanish as libre).

There have been some in the Free Software movement that would like to call Free Software "Software Libre" (in the French way). Hence the acronym FLOSS: Free/Libre/Open-Source Software

[ZylGadis]

It is similar in Germanic languages. "kostenlos" is equivalent to "gratis" while "frei" is equivalent to "liber."

It is very unfortunate that "kostenlos" did not pass into English for some reason (its direct translation would be "costless"). Or, alternatively, the fact that "free" has the meaning of "gratis" in English might tell a lot about the mindset of a typical Anglo-Saxon. Fascinating things, languages.

[Lexicon101]

Hmmm. Let me check something...
(really, you don't have a choice. cause I won't be posting this until after I've checked, but.. I'll leave it in there anyway.)
放して = released = libre.
自由 = free = gratis.
Japanese translations. Not sure if they're the most accurate, but they're the most accurate I could get on short notice.

(By accurate, I mean to specify whether or not they'd be used in that situation.)