Talk:Gratis versus libre

Liber vs. libre
Should be gratis versus liber. Both in Latin. &mdash; Chameleon 23:34, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
 * "Gratis" and "libre" are the French terms. &mdash; Casey J. Morris 01:37, September 1, 2005 (UTC)


 * I've been unable to find "gratis" in any online French dictionaries. However, both words are Spanish. &mdash; FuzzyOnion 06:34, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, the French is "gratuit." &mdash;Casey J. Morris 18:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm french so I add my two cents here: "gratis" is sometime used in speech or familiar language, not really as a synonym for the adjective "gratuit" but more for the adverb "gratuitement". You can find it in this online French dictionary http://www.cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/gratis -- EveLaFée (talk • contribs) 02:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Did anyone check the word gratis on the italian wikipedia? You wrote about latin, spanish, german but not about the italian meaning. --Gianmarco T. (talk) 13:43, 22 July 2008 (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 wonder why they don't use the English word "liberal". --Yejianfei (talk) 01:35, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Making "free as in beer" subheader of Gratis
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)


 * In a discussion with my co-workers, I realized there's another "free": available. "Are you free for dinner?" "No, I have class tonight." - UtherSRG (talk) 18:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * free for dinner => having the liberty of time for dinner, as in liber / libre — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.112.82.3 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 27 June 2007

Free as a Puppy
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 think this is a useful term and would be great in the article! EdSaperia (talk) 21:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I've heard of the "free as in a puppy" concept as well. The context I heard it in was that volunteers are free as in a puppy, not free as in beer. While a volunteer provides free labor that otherwise might need to be paid for (in wages, a salary, etc.), an organization typically still incurs costs for taking on volunteers. Even if volunteers don't receive formal training, a paid employee will usually need to take time to train them (even if you have a volunteer training other volunteers, time is money). I don't think this is relevant to a discussion of gratis versus libre, though perhaps it could be worth its own article if it meets notability guidelines. In this context, "free as in a puppy" is gratis initially, but there are still associated costs. If such an article were to be made, it would be a good see also candidate, but again, I don't think it's directly related to this article; it's just another example of the ambiguity of "free" in English. --BDD (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

1984
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


 * I don't think so. This is the topic of many books besides Nineteen Eighty-Four. No particular reason to include exactly that one. A superb book, though. --logixoul 12:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What's up with '84? I'm sure they're mentioned every year. :-) Vildricianus 20:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Free beer
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


 * Could you provide me with some examples? 195.194.167.31 13:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oooh, yes, can I have some too?! 220.238.30.131 09:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Split these two articles?
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 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)


 * We used to have two separate articles but deletionists said "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" so I created this article to preserve the contents from the deletionists. If this article ever gets big enough, it could be broken into two, but splitting it now would only create articles people would want to delete because "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". WAS 4.250 15:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, the wiktionary entries wikt:gratis wikt:libre are pretty useless. Phr (talk) 05:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I prefer the status quo, i.e. "Gratis vs Libre", to individual articles on gratis and libre. —Quarl (talk) 2006-08-23 05:47Z 


 * Seems like contextually this is going to be more useful 90% of the time, for people first encountering either phrase. And as for the wiktionary entries, isn't that just (or at least mainly) supposed to be for English words? Tokataro 05:06, 4 September 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)

"The phrase is derived from Spanish."
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 liberty equivlent to libre" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.212.71 (talk • contribs) 00:47, 27 October 2006
 * Yes. Liberty. Freedom. We have words in English. WAS 4.250 05:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Except that libre is used as an adjective. Kctucker 11:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry but gratis and libre has always been the main words in Spanish to denote both concepts. --83.39.31.18 (talk) 23:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Libre equivalent in English
Is not the word liberation the same? (or liberated, etc) just that there is no root word? SECProto 02:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Liberty, liberation, freedom. We have words in English. The choice of the word "free" was a mistake. That choice is currently justified by the mythology of a lack of adequate alternatives in English. WAS 4.250 05:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Er, but none of those "alternatives" are adjectives. Redquark 23:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Liberty Bell, Liberation theology, Freedom Trail, Freedom rides and so on set examples that could have been used instead of "free". WAS 4.250 09:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem with liberty and freedom is those words have nationalistic connotations, at least in the USA. Words whose dictionary definitions mean Gratis and Libre may exist in common english, but they don't seem to have neutral connotations. Harperska 13:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * See "History of free" free = Libre (not gratis), befor modern englis — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.112.82.3 (talk • contribs) 14:43, 27 June 2007

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)

Libre also = gratis in French? (According to Wiktionary)
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Flibre&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

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)


 * It doesn't. I speak French and I can tell you that the "gratis" meaning of "libre" is an uncommon usage that would only be used in certain limited contexts (and I can't even think of any at the moment).  The connotation of liberty is much stronger.  "logiciel libre" is not ambiguous.  Redquark 23:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Gratis becoming common?
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)
 * I don't know where you live, but Gratis has been in fairly common usage in London, UK for many years. I haven't noticed it getting more or less common. I don't tend to use it myself, but I hear it frequently. 109.150.205.201 (talk) 21:41, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of "gratis"
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)

History of free
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

Costless and Unencumbered
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)


 * Should be able to cite fsf.org, I'll wager. --Kim Bruning 20:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Too long article?
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)

Free as in beer?
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)


 * Even the article-link that was put in place of the FAIB, Alternative terms for free software doesn't contain the removed info, nor any subsequent link. Either return the FAIB section, put it in Free as in beer without the redirect, or redirect it somewhere that has the deleted information. Just deleting an entire section without fixing the stuff pointing to it is really annoying. -- PaulxSA (talk) 01:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, it turns out I'm just an idiot who didn't read it properly... sorry. I've added the section header, just for clarity, but it wasn't worth ranting about -- PaulxSA (talk) 02:05, 12 August 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)
 * What you say is true, except that, while Wikipedia is indeed gratis, it is also libre, and it is that aspect that the Wikimedia Foundation chooses to emphasize in the tagline. Powers T 13:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Lamujer is definitely right on that. The no-cost aspect of WP is insignificant in comparison to the liberty which users have to edit it. It's a distinction that English can't make as concisely, and I think it's led to a widespread misconception that WP is defined by its no-cost services.Nlj7b2 (talk) 04:43, 12 March 2009 (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)


 * Have fun! :-). IIRC there is a Gratis versus Libre article, which might bear linking? --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Open source-centric
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)


 * Had you sought the phrase "free as in beer" (used by the open source community), you would have ended up here, too. Judging by edit-histories, "Free as in beer" and "Gratis" had their own fairly elaborate articles, which were killed and redirected here. I note that you have restored "Gratis", you may have to fight to keep it, best of luck -- PaulxSA (talk) 04:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Free as in Beer "they mean the former" is confusing
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)

Libre in Tagalog
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 "malay&acirc;". 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)

Free as in beer - again (sigh)
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.)

-- PaulxSA (talk) 00:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Had a muck around, removed the individual languages (If you want to know more about the language groups, presumably you can click on the links), tried to unify the style of some of the language, but I would welcome a second set of eyes. -- PaulxSA (talk) 22:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

"Free Software" IS free beer
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)

"Free as in beer"
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)


 * At an open bar? -- PaulxSA (talk) 14:49, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipediaaaa
"Wikipedia La Enciclopedia Gratuita", ought to be called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.230.105.165 (talk) 05:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia es libre y gratuita, tanto. (Google translate, lo siente.) -- PaulxSA (talk) 23:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Bad interwiki links
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)

Original research
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)
 * I don't think this is original research and it is not about defining terms. This is an article — and a good one for that matter — about an important conceptual discussion and argument in the world. I found this article when looking for a way to link to a reference and explain this difference and the history and arguments around it. I'm going to remove the original research tag on the top of the page. — m a k o ๛  17:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Picture unnecessary?
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)


 * I assume someone added it due to the complaints of others that they've never seen "free beer". Think of it as an elaborate ref tag :) PaulxSA (talk) 00:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

No redirects beginning with "libre"
It appears that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Gratis_versus_libre&hidelinks=1 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)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

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)
 * Support - should be clearer this way Red Slash 03:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose – the article is not about the word free, but about the distinction between the meanings. Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment it's more about the convoluted concept of "free" as found in English, because the two words "free" in English have the same spelling. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * There's only one word "free" in English; the article is about the concepts that it might refer to, not about the word "free". Dicklyon (talk) 20:23, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * And yet it is about the word, since it's about the fact that one word represents two concepts. If the one word didn't refer to two concepts, we wouldn't have this article. This article would make no sense at all in French or German or Spanish, since these languages don't have our "free" nor any true translation. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It would depend on who you asked. Some people would consider there are multiple words with the same spelling, others would say it is one word. But since the two concepts appear with the same spelling in English, the misconception of English-speakers with respect to the meaning of the term used to indicate the two concepts is also significant. This article only concerns these two concepts, and the misconception engendered in English by using the same spelling for both concepts, and not about the word itself. There are additional meanings to the term "free" that are not covered in this article. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:13, 13 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose there are more meanings to the term "free" than are covered in this article. The article should not be expanded to cover those additional concepts. (ie. lead-fee means unleaded (without), not gratis or libre) -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:13, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The "gratis–libre" confusion is a quite unusual property of the English word free, which has parallels in very few languages; I think the article should be explicit about it. Renaming it would help that. Right now the article presents it as if to suggest that this is some sort of fundamental conceptual ambiguity it clearly is not; it is just that the common English word free refers to both concepts, and unambiguous synonyms are relatively obscure. Adding an explanation of how this confusion came to be would be beneficial for this article. Also, the "gratis" meaning can be understood as "cost-free", which is a special-case of the general meaning you mentioned (I would not be surprised if "free" was originally ellipsis for "free of charge"), so actually that meaning would not be out of place. — Keφr 12:56, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose precisely per 65.94.169.222. This article is about a very narrow subset of possible meanings of "free" and the conflict between and confusion surrounding those two in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose per 65.94.169.222, and because this distinction is about more than the word, and "gratis versus libre" is the usual way this distinction is described. &mdash;innotata 22:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As observes, that this is not about the word free but about two of its meanings. The page title reflects the content quite succinctly. Q VVERTYVS  (hm?) 20:45, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The article is not about is the word itself, but about a nuanced concept for which English words are lacking.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:31, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. This article talks about the ambiguity of the English word free. There is no "nuanced concept" here: few languages have a word with comparable ambiguity (at free only English and Czech are listed; also, German has frei), and only in English (and maybe German) the ambiguity is so prominent. Renaming the article would make that explicit. — Keφr 12:56, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Frei in German I am pretty sure is libre and they have another word for free of cost (kostenfrei). XFEM Skier (talk) 16:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The word is kostenlos, but I remember sometimes seeing frei in advertising. I guess the latter word is less popular in this meaning. — Keφr 17:15, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Draft Libre under review
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)

Merge Articles and Clarify
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)

Nonfree priceless software
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)


 * In modern English, the word priceless usually means something unique and highly valued, such that it is difficult to name a price high enough for it; i.e. not what you seem to think it means. I believe the term you are looking for, as used by the FSF, is "zero cost". -- HarJIT (talk) 14:17, 11 December 2017 (UTC)


 * "Priceless" means "too expensive to set the price", such as gold and diamond. --Yejianfei (talk) 05:07, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

libre or liberal?
What is the difference between "libre" and "liberal"? --Yejianfei (talk) 05:11, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * 'liberal' is an older term in English than 'libre' is, and as such has a diversified set of meanings, some of which might even seem contradictory. While rooted in the general concept of freedom or liberty, it often has a more political focus -- that is, civil liberties (with the exception of the adverb form 'liberally', which means without parsimony...as in "the pancakes were liberally coated with maple syrup"). But over time and across differences of opinion, it encompasses different attitudes to civil liberties, including classical liberalism or neoliberalism or as included in connected concepts like liberal democracy. Arlo James Barnes 20:14, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

seeking discussion on possible rename / refocus
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)

Telagram gurubu
İdda gurubu 88.253.81.196 (talk) 01:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)