A translation mistake is fixed: before the Italian version of a report by the European Parliament talked about "gratis software" although the English version was about Free Software (aka Open Source Software).
On 19 January the European Parliament adopted its own-initiative report "Towards a Digital Single Market" in response to the European Commission's Digital Single Market strategy (see FSFE's press release). The report includes this part:
- Calls on the Commission [...] the increased use of free and open source software, particularly in educational establishments and public administrations [...];
Paolo Dongilli realised that in the Italian version "Free Software" became "software gratuito" (gratis software) and informed Carlo Piana about it. This translation mistake is particularly strange because in the Italian law the official wording is "Software Libero e a sorgente aperto" which highlights the freedom aspect and has nothing todo with the costs.
As we did not have direct contacts with the publications office we asked MEP Julia Reda and her staff for help. A few days later they let us know that it is solved: Paragraph 125 is now corrected to "software liberi e con codice sorgente aperto (open source)".
Thanks to Paolo for spotting the problem, to Julia Reda's staff for forwarding the bug report, and to MEP Kaja Kallas for actually fixing it.
The only thing left is to inform the translators that "software" is not a numerable word. Therefore it should never be used as plural but singular, which means it is "Software Libero" in Italian.
Update: I was told by Julia Reda that it was Kaja Kallas who fixed it. So I added her in my thank you notes.