Surfing the net to get some references to put into an article about free software I was writing for my web page, I've been on the site of opensource.org.
I was surprised to notice that on the French translation of their definition of open source software (version 1.9) they translated the term "open source" as "logiciel libre", wich is the exact translation of "free software". This is not the case - for example - on the Spanish translation which is "Código Fuente Abierto". For the Italian version it is even not translated.
Pointers: English: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.html French: http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd-francais.html Spanish: http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd-spanish.html Italian: http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd-italian.html
Most of the time in France we do not translate the term if we want to refer to "open source" but we may say "logiciel libre" to refer to "free software". The exact translation of "open source" would rather be "sources ouvertes", but we do not use it.
I prefer to speak of "logiciel libre " to refer to "free software" (see the "we speak about free software campaign"). But if the "official translation" of "open source" is also "logiciel libre", it will be a bit harder for French free software supporters to explain people what is the difference (if any) between those 2 concepts and why on term should be preferred to the other.
Any advice?
Guillaume Ponce http://www.guillaumeponce.org/