"In English the word "free" is fraught with ambiguous meaning, which is why the open source world has to make the distinction between free as in speech vs. free as in beer. In Romance languages, such as Spanish, French or Italian, the twin meanings munged into the English word "free" are split between two words, one derived from the Latin "libre" (freedom) and the other from the Latin "gratis" (zero price).
In these languages, "libre" is usually an alloyed good, while "gratis" is often considered a marketing gimmick.In English, marketers take advantage of the ambiguity to use the positive connotations of freedom to help past suspicions over the truth of the pricing meaning.
But that still leaves the question: what's the derivation of the English word "free"?It's actually fascinating: "free" comes from the same Old English root as "friend".
The path is this:
[They both come] from the Old English freon, freogan "to free, love." The primary sense seems to have been "beloved, friend, to love;" which in some languages (notably Gmc. and Celtic) developed also a sense of "free," perhaps from the terms "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves)."
The sense of "given without cost" is from 1585, from notion of "free of cost."
Chris Anderson - Long Tail
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário