Libre suffers from the same problem as 'free' perception-wise, and has the bonus issue of being hard to know if you're pronouncing it right. Libre means free, so any word association issues around free will apply by default. Also, not all open source software is free in price terms, which free/libre creates confusion around.
> No, libre does not mean "free as in zero-cost" it means "free as in freedom".
Prior to its adoption by the Free Software community to resolve the distinction, it was obsolete and virtually unused in English; while it was used in English with that meaning, it was no longer current at the time, and in some of the languages where the word is current -- and where people it in fact has the same "zero-cost" vs. "having the quality of liberty" ambiguity as "free" has in English.
Using current, widely used, and idiomatic English terms that address the distinction -- "complimentary" vs. "unencumbered" rather than "gratis" vs. "libre", for instance -- would probably be more clear to people outside the movement than adopting terms that had fallen into general disuse in English. Specialized and unfamiliar-to-the-general-public language can be good for jargon intended to make technical distinctions in a closed community, but its a barrier to communicating with the wider public.
No it wasn't "obsolete and virtually unused" - at least, not in the UK. I knew what libre meant back when I was a youngster, long before I'd ever heard of the FSF.
I suspect the vast majority of literate English speakers could tell you what libre meant and wouldn't think of it having any connection with software at all. It's an English word borrowed from the French, not computer jargon.
