Gratis versus libre

Free Beer being sold for 500 yen at Isummit 2008. This contradicts the usual definition and instead illustrates "Free as in freedom": recipe and label shared openly under CC BY-SA.

The adjective free in English is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (gratis) or "with little or no restriction" (libre). This ambiguity can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in dealing with laws concerning the use of information, such as copyright and patents.

The terms gratis and libre may be used to categorise intellectual property like computer programs, according to the licenses and legal restrictions that cover them, especially in the free software and open source communities, as well as the broader free culture movement. For example, they are used to distinguish "freeware" (software gratis) from free software (software libre).

Free software advocate and GNU founder Richard Stallman advocates usage of the slogan: "Think free as in free speech, not free beer."[1] This basically means: "Think free as in libre, not gratis."

  1. ^ Lessig, Lawrence (September 2006). "Free, as in beer". Wired. Retrieved 18 March 2009.

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