News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on European Commission issues call for evidence on open source. Parent comment

Re:European Commission issues call for evidence on open source by swiftcoder on Friday January 09, 2026 @07:48AM (#46553302)
Being the only Romance language that doesn't have separate words for "libre" and "gratis" (liberté and gratuit, etc), has its downsides
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission issues call for evidence on open source by tbrownaw on Friday January 09, 2026 @07:53AM (#46553340)
> only Romance language

...But we're (mostly) not one?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission issues call for evidence on open source by swiftcoder on Friday January 09, 2026 @12:24PM (#46556314)
I mean, yes and no? In common speech we certainly lean more on Germanic vocabulary (and grammar!), but the dictionary overall has a lot more French/Latin-derived vocabulary than it does Germanic - many of them overly formal/technical for daily speech

(Entertainingly, modern German also adopted the Latin-rooted "gratis")

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission issues call for evidence on open source by irishcoffee on Friday January 09, 2026 @11:01AM (#46555242)
I could make an argument that "Complimentary" would be analogous to gratis in this context.
[ Parent | on HN ]