“free-as-in-speech” vs. "free-as-in-beer”
"free" is ambiguous in English, and FOSS people tend to mean the former when people misinterpret it as the latter, which is why the phrases came about
- free as in speech means freedom; in an open-source context, the license doesn't prevent you from fiddling with the code or making your own changes
- free as in beer means price; the software costs nothing
There was (is?) a lot of confusion when people said they support "free software" -- free (as in speech) software doesn't need to cost nothing, and costing nothing doesn't necessarily make software "free".
As I mentioned in the comments here, I e-mailed Mr. Richard Stallman about this. Here is his reply:
From: Richard Stallman
Date: Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: “free-as-in-speech” vs. "free-as-in-beer”
To: RENJITH GQN: I would like to know the exact meaning of "free-as-in-speech" and "free-as-in-beer"
It is hard to give "exact" meanings for philosophical concepts, so I am a bit lost.
The English word "free" has two different meanings. Many other languages have different words for them. For instance, I think Hindi has "mukt" for "free as in freedom" and "muft" for "gratis, zero price'.
QN: Also why this example words (the words free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer) are being used to descibe the concept?
Those are not the words I use. I use "free as in 'free speech'" and "free as in 'free beer'". Is that clearer?
It seems you heard someone else shorten the two phrases a little.
--
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org
"Free as in free speech" vs "Free as in free beer" isn't a concept, it is an example of a concept. :-)
This example belongs to the GPL and is used to clarify the definition of "free" in the term "Free Software".
Free beer is gratis. It doesn't cost you anything. The term refers to the price of a product. This is not the intention of the word "free" in this context.
The intention is more like "free" in free speech, the liberty to say the things you want without getting censored.