glauxosdever wrote:
This misconception is persisted because of the inability of the English language to really express the difference. Something that doesn't cost is marked as free. Something that isn't restricted is also marked as free. In all other languages I know, these concepts are called with different names.
I think the term "libre" is taking over to refer to the latter sense.
Rusky wrote:
That's a distinction free software people love to make, but in the end it's mostly irrelevant because one of those freedoms is the freedom to redistribute the software. If a corporation isn't allowed to use the software for zero cost, it's no longer considered "free software."
While "freedom to redistribute" is almost always a freedom given by free software, there are many more that tend to matter only to the people that care about them. Usually when people ignore or criticise the distinction between cost and freedom, it's because they either don't understand or don't care about the difference. That's not a criticism by the way; you're perfectly entitled to pay as much or as little attention as you want to the freedom given to you regarding the software that you use, but people who care about software freedom consequently care about the distinction between price and freedom. Also, there are open source licensing models that do allow software to be free software while still being sold to commercial users - while these might not meet the FSF's requirements for "free software" they are perfectly acceptable to most proponents of open source software.