On Wednesday 15 May 2002 1:06 pm, Guillaume Ponce wrote:
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?
In English, "free" means either "without resriction" or "without price".
This means "free software" can be seen as ambiguous: does it mean free as in speech, or as in beer? Hence the term "open source" was invented. (Unfortunately, this also is ambiguous, and can be interpreted as meaning "you can see (but not necessarily alter) the source").
But in French, there is no ambiguity, one can say "libre" or "gratuit". So there is no linguistic force pushing for a separate term.
Personally, I think "freedom software" would be a good term, since it loses the ambiguity.