>"Free" unfortunately has 2 meanings in English. French does it better.
>The word "gratuit" means "free of cost." The word "libre" means
>"free of restriction." To put it a different way (as Stallman
>himself has said), there's "free speech" and "free beer." "Free"
>in "Free Software" refers to the free speech part - it is related
>to the fact that sources are distributed, not to the fact that no
>fee is charged.
>
>(As it happens, Free Software is usually available at low cost,
>but that's a coincidence, not inherent in the "free" word.)

I've always thought that Stallman could have avoided all this confusion by
naming his organization the "Liberated Software Foundation" :-)

Regards,

Ben Brosgol
[log in to unmask]