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   Ayo (ayo@lonely.town)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 16:52:53 JST Ayo

   I've never been a fan of the "free software" name. It's too easily conflated with freeware and constantly having to add the "no, no, I mean free as in freedom" explanation gets tiresome really fast.

   Which is why I used to embrace "open source" instead, but unfortunately that's more and more getting confused with "source available" (I partly blame this on Github for branding itself as "open source hosting" without actually requiring open source licensing, but they're certainly not the only ones at fault).

   So I figured we need a new name, and my first thought was "Libreware". Of course, someone was already ahead of me: https://www.libreware.org/

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   • Embed this notice
     Ayo (ayo@lonely.town)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 16:53:32 JST Ayo

     in reply to

     Although I used to really dislike the use of "libre" in English for a long time. I remember when the LibreOffice fork came along and thinking "why the hell use a French word!?". But then again, "FreedomOffice" might have attracted an entirely different kind of crowd, so perhaps it was a good choice after all.

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     Wolf480pl (wolf480pl@mstdn.io)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 17:03:35 JST Wolf480pl

     in reply to

     @ayo in Polish it's "wolne oprogramowanie", where "wolne" can mean both "free as in freedom" and "slow", which is quite funny :D

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     Ayo (ayo@lonely.town)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 17:03:37 JST Ayo

     in reply to

     • Wolf480pl

     @wolf480pl "Vrije software" is the term I see the most on Dutch communities, which corresponds to the "free-as-in-freedom" translation.

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     Wolf480pl (wolf480pl@mstdn.io)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 17:03:38 JST Wolf480pl

     in reply to

     @ayo btw what do you call it in Dutch?

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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 17:10:44 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to
     @ayo Libre is also Spanish, Italian, … while "free" is just English and so far seems to just get translated when it's for "free software".
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     subleq (subleq@lonely.town)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2025 17:28:54 JST subleq

     in reply to

     @ayo europeeps have two words for "free" (libre/gratis), but english only has the one. its operator overload :blobcattableflip:

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.