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Should be gratis versus liber. Both in Latin. — Chameleon 23:34, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
There are many misnomers in English. Even words that mix elements from greek and latin. (horrors!) For better or worse "libre" is the term as currently used in English to be contrasted with "gratis" when discussing software. I am not aware of "liber" being in common use in English for any purpose whatever. 4.250.177.52 13:46, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I just made free as in beer a subheader of Gratis, as I found it quite confusing to have Gratis, Libre, and Free as in Beer as the headers in an article about Gratis vs Libre. Not only isn't Free as in Beer a separate philosophy, but it was also already described under Gratis. So I merged the relevant paragraphs as well. Hopefully all these edits ended up achieving the clarity I was hoping for. :-) -- Jugalator 10:59, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
Where does "Free as a Puppy" fit into this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stuorguk (talk • contribs) 09:16, 14 February 2006
-You get a puppy for free but you still have to spend money to keep it alive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.251.129.62 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 26 October 2007
I know there was some mention of these different meanings of "free" in 1984. Are they worth being mentioned in this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phantom784 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 20 March 2006
Could you elaborate on "free beer"? Is it common to offer beer for free in some cultures? Where? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.250.143.131 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 5 April 2006
Any objection to splitting this into two articles "gratis" and "libre"? That makes it possible to link to "libre" or "gratis" to gloss the word "free": "Wikipedia is the [[libre|free]] encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Right now, "libre" redirects to "Gratis versus Libre" so clicking the link wouldn't resolve the ambiguity. For easy maintenance it could be done as two new articles of a sentence or so each, both linking to this article which goes into more detail. Phr 00:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Splitting this article up might be a good idea. For one thing, as a first step towards a possible split, I'd suggest abbreviating the section Generalizing the "Gratis/Libre" distinction to the Open Access movement"' and renaming it for a more general description of "libre" in other more general fields (Open Access, knowledge, culture, etc.. - Kim Tucker (talk) 10:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
It's not a 'phrase', just a phrase. Nor do I believe that 'it derives from Spanish' or any other language. It's just a concept. --jazzle 10:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Is not the word liberation the same? (or liberated, etc) just that there is no root word? SECProto 02:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it not time English accepted "libre" in the same way as other Loanwords: "Although loanwords are typically far fewer than the native words of most languages ..., they are often widely known and used, since their borrowing served a certain purpose...". Using "libre" serves a purpose: it disambiguates "free" (gratis/libre) in discussions about FLOSS and free knowledge etc. The word "libre" is becoming widely understood by English speakers - especially those interested in free culture, libre knowledge, FLOSS, etc. - Kctucker 08:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Can we use the term "liberal" instead? --Yejianfei (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
ie. One valid synonym of "libre" is "gratuit" which means "gratis".
ie. It seems to have the exact same problem as the English word "free".
--irrevenant [ talk ] 03:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I question the claim gratis is becoming more common in the English language. I've never heard it used other then in the context of the libre/gratis distinction. Perhaps gratis is used in the US given the Spanish influence but not so much elsewhere? Nil Einne 20:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Gratis is the plural ablative form of the first declension noun "grātia" in Latin and used as an adjective in various Romance and Germanic languages meaning "for nothing" [...]
In modern languages it means "for nothing" but I believe that its original meaning in Latin is different: The word "grātia", from which the English "grace" is derived, may also mean "thanks" when used in plural (compare Spanish "gracias", Italian "grazie" and Catalonian "gràcies"). When the ablative form of this plural is used, it can mean "for the thanks", i. e. "for saying thank you", "in exchange of saying thank you". Which somehow makes sense because when you get something "gratis" you don't have to pay, so the only thing you have to do is just to say "thank you" (and getting something for free gives you a good reason to be thankful to the person giving it to you).
This is a nice thing to know but I don't know if it deserves a place in the article so I post it here.
On a completely unrelated topic, I would say that "gratis" is not used as an adjective proper, but as an adverb. Although it is very difficult to tell. One difference between adjectives and adverbs in languages like Spanish or German is that adjectives agree in number and gender (and in German, in case) with the noun they refer to. But "gratis" is an invariable word in the mentioned languages. Although Latin words incorporated into these languages are often invariable.
In German, you can say "das Bier ist gratis" ("the beer is free") but you it would be wrong to talk about "ein gratis Bier" ("a free beer"). In Spanish you may say "una cerveza gratis" although I doubt this usage, despite being widespread, is correct.
In both cases, the languages have words that are proper adjectives: German has "kostenlos" (literally: "costless") and Spanish has "gratuito" (compare French "gratuit"). Like all adjectives, these words adapt their endings to agree with the noun they refer to:
ein kostenloser Zug
eine kostenlose Reise
ein kostenloses Bier
un viaje gratuito
una cerveza gratuita
... etc.
Charly1982 10:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The concept of free as in free beer "grātia" is new to English language, before modern English that is. Free as in freedom "līber" is the original meaning. In comparative study to old Germanic languages one can easily see that the parse "without charge" is used when "grātia" is meant, that would be if translated like: beer available without charge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.112.82.3 (talk • contribs) 14:40, 27 June 2007
The article starts, "Gratis is slowly becoming more common in the English language. However, libre has not, and no English adjective signifies freedom only."
The claim in the first sentence is uncited, and the second is factually incorrect, since one can differentiate these two meanings of free by using words like "costless" and "unencumbered". Is there any reason not to delete these two sentences? --Steve Foerster 17:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
It feels like this article might be too stretched. The difference between gratis and libre are given three times. One should do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.251.129.62 (talk) 23:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I've seen the phrase "free as in beer" a few times, a recent mention made me decide to look it up; sure enough, WP found it (yay wp!) but redirects here, where there is currently not a single reference to the phrase except in the external links.
I get from the article what FAIB refers to (free as in price, as opposed to liberty), but since FIAB redirects here, there should be at least one reference somewhere in the destination article. -- PaulxSA (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I cannot figure out how to maneuver around this website to edit an error on the front page of Wikipedia, so I hope that someone will see this post and take care of it.
When I say the front page, I'm talking about the page www.wikipedia.com. Under Español, it says "La enciclopedia libre". That is incorrect. It should be "La enciclopedia gratis". Libre signifies freedom, for example I am free from slavery. Gratis signifies no cost.
--Lamujer (talk) 15:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why all mention of free beer vs free speech have been removed from the article, when the references below are all about it. I get why it doesn't deserve its own section, but a line in the intro para surely wouldn't go amiss - I will add one unless anyone has a major objection Dan Gluckman (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
This article is a blatant promotion for open source. I was looking for the business/economic concept of "free of charge/gratis" and I ended up here. --Voidvector (talk) 09:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
The paragraph regarding the definition of "Free as in beer" is confusing - specifically the use of "they mean the former" The ordering of Gratis and Libre changes throughout the document and indeed within this paragraph: "gratis and libre" "will draw a distinction between free as in free speech (libre) and free as in free beer (gratis, gratuit)." "they mean the former." This should be edited to say "they mean Free as in gratis/libra because ......" Reading this I'm not sure which one it should be which makes this whole para rather useless. Whalford (talk) 01:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
In the Tagalog language, libre is a Spanish loan word but means "without cost" in contrast to the meaning given in this article. The Tagalog word for "free" as in "free speech" is "malayâ". That's why the Tagalog Wikipedia uses the subtitle "ang malayang ensiklopedya" (the "libre" encyclopedia) instead of "ang libreng ensiklopedya" (the "gratis" encyclopedia) even though the latter is a valid Tagalog phrase.
I think that this should be included in the article, although it would border on the trivial side already. I guess such information would be acceptable if the etymology and relationships of the words "gratis" and "libre" in the Indo-European languages were discussed in the article. --seav (talk) 10:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Someone removed the free-as-in-beer section again, without discussing it here, so I've added it back. I've also merged some of the language from the Gratis article, which I thought was better phrased. None-the-less the intro is still longer than the article, and includes things not in the main article, if someone feels confident they can expand Free-as-in-beer or add an open-source-movement section.
I get the impression people want to kill this section because it seems like propaganda for the open-souce movement. But the reason it's relevant is that the phrase "Gratis vs Libre" comes from open source (and related groups, like Wikipedia). It isn't a common english phrase, it is a phrase used in one, and only one, context - open source.
On that subject, "Libre", in this context, is not a spanish/french word. It is an english neologism created by FOSS advocates. Similarly "Gratis" is common american-english slang, not hungarian/polish/romanian; though certainly introduced from those languages, through european migration to the US, the word in this context is only english.
If noone objects, I'd like to remove all the other languages. (Or if someone else agrees, they can do it now.)
The whole "Free as in speech, not free beer" is hogwash because every GPL software is free beer also. It just CANNOT be otherwhise. Of course, you can sell GPL'ed software, but, because you need to give away all the source code, your customer can compile it, and then upload the binaries to the internet legally. Et Voila! Once that happens, you can forget to "sell" that software, your only way to make money is through support etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.131.219 (talk) 18:53, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
"Of course, you can sell GPL'ed software" and that's the point. You can sell specially compiled enterprise-level multi-machine installs. You can sell appliances that use linux. Computer makers can install FOSS to their hearts content. GPL allows it. But that's not the emphasis of the phrase, rather it is intended, I believe, to point out the opposite:- that free-gratis software isn't always free-libre. (Hence you'll see the phrase most often when someone says such-and-such software is "free", a FOSS advocate will invariably reply, "...as in beer", to emphasise that the software is closed source.) -- PaulxSA (talk) 21:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand this. Where do you get beer for free? Everywhere I've looked it costs money. What is this supposed to mean? Makes no sense at all! --82.215.243.216 (talk) 16:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
"Wikipedia La Enciclopedia Gratuita", ought to be called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.230.105.165 (talk) 05:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm a bit annoyed by the link to french article "Gratuité_(économie)" and the others in other languages (except Dansk). The french article links back to "Gratis" which is not this page.
When the english ambiguity doesn't occur in an other language and/or people didn't make a page about it, I think we should just delete the interwiki link.
If no one stands against it, I'll delete at least the french link someday :) -- EveLaFée (talk) 03:26, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
The word definitions are more appropriate for wiktionary, and the whole article needs basing on references for this topic, as it stands it looks like WP:OR. Please add refs to the subject. Widefox (talk) 14:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
While the picture does include the words 'free' and 'beer', I don't really see how it illustrates or exemplifies the concept of 'free beer', thus making it more or less irrelevant to the discussion of libre vs. gratis. On the other hand, maybe I am just not getting the whole 'free beer' analogy completely. Crazyeirishman (talk) 21:53, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
It appears that there are currently no redirects to this article that put "libre" first. For example, I tried to use libre versus gratis in a discussion elsewhere and was surprised to see the preview come up with a redlink.
Is it okay for me to create that specific redirect? What about others? Or is there a good reason "libre" should not come first? SoledadKabocha (talk) 05:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Page not moved: insufficient support Ground Zero | t 01:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Gratis versus libre → Free (word) – Despite the fancy name, what this article really is about is the word itself. Wikipedia explicitly allows articles about words when there is more to say about it than its definition, and that is certainly true of free despite (or maybe because of) the ambiguity. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 11:35, 20 August 2014 (UTC) Oiyarbepsy (talk) 14:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
A Draft:Libre article is on the review list. It has a long history and an on-going relationship with this "Gratis versus libre" article. A requested move has also been proposed for it to replace the existing Libre which is a disambiguation page at the moment (and move that to "Libre (disambiguation)"). Comment welcome. Thanks - K (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
I came to the "Gratis versus Libre" article expecting to leave wiser than when I started. I did not. I am now even more confused about the two terms.
More Examples Needed Repeating the phrase "free as in free beer" a lot does not constitute a good example if one never really explains it. Any Wikipedia visitor should be able to read an article and leave feeling satisfied that that particular article answered their particular question (especially when it is the article title).
Merge Articles Why do we need a dozen articles about "Gratis versus Libre," "Freeware," and other similar sounding things when a few articles can do the job.
Side note: I'm not an experienced Wikipedia editor. Thanks for reading. Tstring42 (talk) 05:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
I dnt think the term of freeware is now meaningful anymore, as we are educated and informed, which free software are software under freedom, then freeware have been now become perm misleading, they are instead nonfree priceless software, with nonfree as in against freedom. Open source, is just development model for free apps and free firmware, and an hybrid operating system between free and nonfree programs, as in what are instructed under the FSDG specific for an GNU system like Parabola, this is for operating systems like GPL for apps and firmware.203.145.94.140 (talk) 11:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
What is the difference between "libre" and "liberal"? --Yejianfei (talk) 05:11, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
I believe renaming the article from 'gratis versus libre' to 'gratis and libre' and shifting the emphasis of the article accordingly may help it to be more encyclopedic, since it doesn't limit to topic to the opposition of these concepts (which arises as a matter of clarifying communication more than describing what they are).
To use an analogical example, despite the map–territory relation being best known to the reader by the phrase "the map is not the territory", that article doesn't feel the need to confine itself to the conflict of such concepts; it surely is an important part of understanding such concepts, but not the complete story. So too with gratis and libre; for the various sources we might cite contrasting them, I believe we will also find sources describing their interplay.
While libre products can have a fee, and proprietary products can have none (such as so-called freeware), often being available at no cost is merely one example of the non-restriction of the distribution of a libre product, in addition to lack of or minimal copyright encumbrance; and proprietary products might be so-situated to enforce a fee. Arlo James Barnes 20:08, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
İdda gurubu 88.253.81.196 (talk) 01:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
The redirect 🆓 has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 9 § 🆓 until a consensus is reached. Charlotte (Queen of Hearts • talk) 20:43, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
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