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Fortunately in German we have two different words for "free as in freedom" ("frei") and "free as in free beer" ("kostenlos"), so it's completely unambiguous tha
by skrause 9y ago
Fortunately in German we have two different words for "free as in freedom" ("frei") and "free as in free beer" ("kostenlos"), so it's completely unambiguous that the publishers were talking about freedom.
- danbruc 9y agoIt is of course not really free of costs, the payment is just indirect via the ad budget included in the prizes of products people buy. And the costs are pooled, which share of the costs an individual user pays depends on his consumer behavior.
- contoraria 9y ago"freie Medien" et al are idiomatic. "frei" still subsumes "kostenlos" in the general case (e.g. free entry). English has "gratis" or "free of charge", too.
- franciscop 9y agoWait is "gratis" an actual, common English word? As a Spaniard I thought it was a joke kind of thing or used in extreme cases to differentiate, but that it was not really used in English (it is a common word in Spanish). Similar to "libre".
- monetus 9y agoIts not uncommon in my experience as a native speaker. I feel like the context of gratis is more transactional than the context of free; eg. "Its a free country" makes more sense than "Its a gratis country".
- contoraria 9y agoBecause that's not how gratis is used. In analogy to "persona non grata", that would be "America is an acceptable country". It may be gratuitous or gracious, however.
- franciscop 9y agoYeah, "gratis" literaly means "free of charge". If you ever see a "gratis country" let me know (;
- guitarbill 9y agoIt is extremely uncommon in British, Australian, and American English (as any search engine will show).