Gratis versus Libre

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"Free as in freedom" redirects here. For the book, see Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software.

"Libre" redirects here. For other uses, see Libre (disambiguation).

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Gratis versus libre is the distinction between "for zero price" (gratis) and "freedom" (libre). Gratis appears in many English dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary. However, libre does so less commonly, and no English adjective signifies "liberty" exclusively and as distinct from "at no monetary cost". This distinction is often important in dealing with laws concerning the use of information, such as copyright and patents. The terms are often used in the free software and open source communities, as well as the broader free culture movement, to categorize computer programs according to the licenses and legal restrictions that cover them. Both this expression and the term gratis are used to distinguish freeware (gratis software) from freedom (libre) software.

Richard Stallman summarised the difference in a slogan: "Think free as in free speech, not free beer."^[1]

[edit] Gratis

Main article: Gratis

Gratis is the plural ablative and dative form of the first-declension noun grātia in Latin and used as an adjective in various Romance and Germanic languages (for example, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Afrikaans, Indonesian) meaning "for free", "free of charge", "at zero cost", in the sense that one does not have to pay for some good or service, even though the good or service may have value.

[edit] Libre

Libre IPA: /ˈliːbɹə/ is a word in various Romance languages, including Spanish and French, and descends from the Latin word līber; they denote "the state of being free", as in "having freedom" or "liberty".