The Japanese translation of the term "free software"

[Akira Urushibata]

This is story about the difficulties we have in Japan on the
seemingly simple matter of agreeing on the translation of "free
software".

It might be hard to believe, but this actually happened.


In 1998 Eric S. Raymond claimed that the "free" of "free software" was
problematic, because many people thought that it meant "free of cost".
I recall that there was a conscious effort led by him to educate
people that the word "free" was no more welcome.  As we well know
he promoted the term "open source".

  Goodbye, "free software"; hello, "open source" 
  
https://web.archive.org/web/20030412171505/http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html

Richard Stallman responded to this by stressing that the "free" of
"free software" is "free as in freedom".  To speakers of languages
that have distinct words for "liberal" and "gratis" he instructed the
use of the word which means freedom.  The GNU project set up a page
(*1) for translators and others who work across linguistic borders:

  Translations of the term "free software"
  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fs-translations.html

    This is a list of recommended unambiguous translations for the
    term "free software" (free as in freedom) into various languages.

Japanese is a language which clearly distinguishes between the two.
"Freedom" is "jiyuu" in Japanese.  Once Richard Stallman found out
about this he went on to instruct his Japanese followers to use the
term "jiyuu sofutouea". (*2) At that time the widely used term was the
simple phonetic transcription: "furii sofutouea".

Stallman's instruction was unfortunately ignored.

"Furii sofutouea" was indeed already popular by then.  It is not easy
to change accepted vocabulary.  But something much more powerful than
inertia, or shortage of public relation resources, was at work in this
case.

Incredibly, Japanese translations of FSF/GNU philosophy documents
available at the official GNU site stuck to the term "furii
sofutouea".  In defiance of Stallman's wishes, the chief Japanese
translator of FSF/GNU documents at that time decided not to modify
existing documents and kept using "furii" in newer work.  Worse, He
did so without Stallman's consent; as far as I know they never
discussed the matter.

I can imagine that the translator, who had for some reason decided
that "furii" would be better than "jiyuu", was in no mood to initiate
talks on this issue; the only result would have been strict
instructions to promptly correct the translated documents in addition
to questioning on why they were left in an improper state for so long.

The Japanese translator also made an important modification to the
above-mentioned "Translations of the term 'free software'" page.  The
original English page gave "jiyuu sofutouea" as the Japanese term but
"furii sofutouea" was added to the Japanese page.  The translator did
this at his own discretion but it appeared that FSF/GNU endorsed it.
(*3) Several other documents authored by Stallman stressed that the
Japanese term must be "jiyuu sofutouea" while failing to use the term
in any other part of the translated text, giving readers awkward
feelings, or worse, doubts whether the author was worthy of respect.

In November 2006 Richard Stallman visited Japan.  In front of several
prominent Japanese supporters he once again ordered that the term
"jiyuu sofutouea" must be used and requested more effort to be devoted
in spreading the message.  I spoke up and explained what was happening
in the translated documents.  Stallman failed to see the point.  This
is understandable, for he was being betrayed by a close aide that he
had trusted in regard of freedom which matters most for him.  He did
recognize the stark negative tone in my protest.  He mistook that I
was attempting to talk him out of efforts to promote "jiyuu sofutouea"
and scolded me for "defeatism".  The other Japanese present there all
stood silent.  This reaction, or rather lack thereof, further misled
Stallman.  It took many years to fix the issue.  Even today, few
people use the term "jiyuu sofutouea".  There are people who are aware
of the term but do not consider it widely accepted.

I recall that around 2006 I encountered a Japanese online document
titled "Furii sofutouea wa jiyuu-na sofutouea datta no da" ("It turned
out that free software was software which is jiyuu")  The author
expresses through the title that he discovered the true meaning
and it was quite enlightening.  For many Japanese "furii" still is
loosely accepted as "free of charge" or a fancy word announcing a
new fad of foreign origin.

Notes:

(*1) Actually there were multiple pages.  The English page was
translated into several languages.

(*2) "Jiyuu" is written in kanji while "furii" and "sofutouea" are
written in katakana.  Kanji are logographs of Chinese origin
(the Chinese call them hanzi).  Katakana are phonetical characters
used for words and names of foreign origin, such as "piano" "banana"
and "printer".)

(*3) As noted in (*1) this is available in several languages.
I recall seeing the Chinese page back then.  There must have been
Spanish and French pages.  The Japanese translator did not bother to
inform the custodians of the original English page or translations
into other languages of the significant change he had made to the
Japanese page.

An important positive characteristic of free software and free
documents is that it faciliates cooperation.  This kind of arbitrary
modification gets in the way of people who try to cooperate.

---

If there are similar tales in other countries/regions, I'd like to
know.  I hope not to hear anything this bad.

One likely question I will answer in advance:

  Why did the translator ignore Stallman's order?

Answer:

  I don't know for sure.

  I have a theory.  For Stallman and most of us on this list, the
  philosophy is as important as the software.  However many free
  software users in Japan were not interested in the philosophy.
  Stallman did not understand this fully; he assumed that once anyone
  heard that it was about freedom he would develop great interest.
  The translator was not so sure.  The Japanese supporters had similar
  thoughts: they felt that the translator was in a sorry position in
  which he received no money and little recognition for his work - and
  Stallman was demanding for more.  Pushing the translator too hard
  against his will came with the risk of refusal to do any more work.


Thank you for reading.

Akira Urushibata