[OpenFontLibrary] libre/open fonts

[Nicolas Spalinger]

Nicu Buculei wrote:
> Fontfreedom at aol.com wrote:
>>  >I highly recommend "libre/open fonts" instead to describe fonts which
>>  >respect the 4 foundational software freedoms as defined by the FSF in
>>  >the specific context of fonts: run the program for any purpose, study
>>  >and adapt the program to your needs, distribute copies of the program,
>>  >improve and release improvements to the program.
>>  
>> Being unfamiliar with the word "libre", I've checked several
>> dictionaries online, and printed ones, and i've come to the conclusion
>> libre isn't a word in the English language. I did find "librae", which
>> is defined as the British Pound. Perhaps we should stick to using
>> words which have previously been defined in dictionaries when
>> describing how free and open our fonts are?
> 
> The term is in wide use http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libre
> 
> It was introduced precisely because the English word "Free" is not good
> enough due to the confusion with "gratis"

Yes, you're entirely right about this.

The ambiguity doesn't exist in many languages from the Romance family:
liber, libre, livre, liber, libero, lliure, etc  (finding the
corresponding language is left as an exercise to the fine people on this
list)...

And as we can see from this page on the FSF's website, they are
recommended translation of the concept of Free Software:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/fs-translations.html

"Libre" as in Libre Graphics Meeting or Libre Planet, a recent FSF
event: http://www.fsf.org/associate/meetings/2009/


-- 
Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer
Debian/Ubuntu font teams / OpenFontLibrary
http://planet.open-fonts.org


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