3 ms·

The first amendment to the US Constitution provides very strong protection for the right to free speech. Presumably that is the origin of "free as in speech".

• nicoburns 4y ago
  Right, but what about "free as in beer"?
  • iex_xei 4y ago
    If I buy you a beer, that's free beer for you.
    • klyrs 4y ago
      Which, unless you're my friend, prompts the questions "what else is in this beer" and "what's in it for you." I believe that to be a deliberate choice in the "free as in beer" analogy.
  • msbarnett 4y ago
    "Free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer" is just expecting you the hearer to understand that while event advertisements might prominently feature the words "free beer" as an exciting statement that beer is being given away for zero cost to drive interest, zero cost is not the sense in which "free" is being used in "free software"
• kragen 4y ago
  No, the idea of freedom of speech predates the US Constitution, by decades, centuries, or millennia, depending on your definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_thought#/media/File:Freedom_of_Thought_Ben_Franklin.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_thought#/media/File... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_thought#History_of_development_and_suppression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_thought#History_of_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne#Lapse_of_the_Licensing_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne#Lapse_of_the_L... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Zenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Zenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Freedom_of_the_Press_Act#Freedom_of_the_Press_Act_of_1766_and_the_Age_of_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Freedom_of_the_Press_A...
  • dolni 4y ago
    Do you think that the free software movement would have adopted "free as in speech" if the US was hostile to free speech?
    • kragen 4y ago
      Certainly, but it would have started somewhere that wasn't hostile to free speech. The Netherlands 20 years from now, maybe, or Korea when the computer is invented 150 years in the future in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.