The libre/gratis distinction names the precise ambiguity at the heart of the phrase "free software." In Romance languages, particularly French and Spanish, the English word "free" splits into two words with different meanings: libre (freedom, liberty) and gratuit / gratis (at no cost). "Free software" in stallman's sense is logiciel libre / software libre — free as in liberty — not logiciel gratuit — free as in no charge.
Why English Is Problematic
English uses a single word "free" for two distinct concepts that other European languages distinguish lexically:
| English | French | Spanish | Meaning | |---------|--------|---------|---------| | free | libre | libre | having freedom, liberty | | free | gratuit/gratis | gratuito/gratis | costing nothing |
This conflation creates persistent confusion in English-language discussions. When stallman says "free software," he means software that respects the four-freedoms — the user's liberty to run, study, redistribute, and modify. He does not mean software that costs nothing. Free software can be sold; non-free software can be given away at no charge.
Stallman's Solution: The Beer/Speech Formulation
Since "libre" is not in common English use, stallman's primary solution is the free-as-in-freedom-concept formulation: "free as in freedom, not free as in beer." This provides context clues that anchor "free" to the liberty meaning rather than the price meaning without requiring English speakers to adopt a foreign word.
The "Libre Software" Alternative
Many European free software advocates, particularly those writing in French or Spanish, use logiciel libre / software libre and argue that English-language advocates should adopt "libre software" to match. This avoids the ambiguity entirely.
stallman has acknowledged the linguistic advantages of "libre" but has generally maintained "free software" in English for two reasons:
1. Historical continuity: The Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project have used "free software" since the early 1980s. Switching to "libre software" would confuse the historical record.
2. Strategic clarity: stallman argues that the correct response to the ambiguity is to educate people about what "free software" means, not to adopt a term that sidesteps the argument. People who learn "libre software" without learning the underlying distinction are not better educated.
Relationship to the Open Source Rebranding
The open-source-definition-schism (1998) was partly motivated by the "free software" ambiguity. eric-raymond and bruce-perens argued that "open source" avoided the confusion between free-as-in-freedom and free-as-in-beer. stallman's counterargument is that "open source" solved a linguistic problem while introducing a philosophical one — it replaced a confusing but correct term with a clear but philosophically inadequate one. See software-freedom-vs-open-source.
Practical Use
The distinction has practical consequences in licensing and policy discussions:
The free-software-definition specifies only the libre dimension. It says nothing about price, and stallman frequently emphasizes that free software distributors are explicitly permitted to charge money — the FSF itself sells physical copies of free software. His essay categories-free-nonfree systematically defines the categories that this distinction underpins. He has also written selling-free-software, which addresses directly the confusion between freedom and price in the commercial context.