• rtxn@lemmy.worldM
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    3 hours ago

    English is a horrible language full of ambiguity. F/LOSS is libre, but not necessarily gratis.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      2 hours ago

      Isn’t it usually the opposite, gratis (because if it’s open source, you could just build it yourself, unless there’s a proprietary build env or hosted env) but not necessarily libre (because of the license?)

      So wouldn’t gratis normally be the superset of libre.

      Then there’s a set of gratis but not open source… someone should do a venn diagram.

    • hakase@lemmy.zip
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      2 hours ago

      All natural human languages have ambiguity. English is no better or worse than any other.

        • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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          3 hours ago

          Wait, but persona non gratis can’t possibly mean a person who isn’t free as in beer, can it? You can’t have Me for free, I’ll only sell My sex for money.

          • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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            2 hours ago

            Persona non grata means person not welcome.

            Gratis is free of charge, or you are welcome to take it.

          • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            Actually, both “persona non grata” (latin has cases) and “gratis coffee/beer/bootloader” both make sense.

            Just convert the “x is gratis” into “you’re welcome to [relevant-action-verb] x”.

            As in, “The kernel is gratis” = “You’re free to [use] the Kernel” (which is basically “it’s free” in everyday english).

            For “Persona non grata” it would be “(You’re a) person not welcome (to [come] here)”.

            This is what it originally meant. It has nothing to do with price and everything to do with gratuity. I (a provider) am grateful to you and welcome you to use/come/see/do/whatever.

            “Gratis” would be the ketchup packet at McDonalds - they’re happy you paid for a burger so they’ll give you a ketcup packet as they’re grateful you did.