More on "free as in beer".

Someone made things a bit more confusing by saving a word. The original phrase must have been "free as in free beer".

Imagine this. Someone puts a sign on a bar, "free beer!" You know what it means, and you go to have a drink. Then you say to the bartender, "by the way, what's the recipe for this beer? I think I can make it better!"

The bartender says, "the recipe is none of your stinking business! It's a family secret! Drink some for free and stop asking questions!"

The beer is free, but not open source.

Now, say someone has a disk with some software on it. You say "nice program! Can I have a copy?" The answer is "no, but I'll give you the source code and you can compile your own copy. Or you can change it as you want!"

The software is "free" in the second sense, in that the "recipe" for making it is open and modifiable. The beer is "free" in the first sense. You can have some, but the recipe is none of your stinking business.