[davidgerard]

In English I just say Lieber-Office, as in Beiber-Office. I have had zero people confused at this pronunciation in the last six years.

(edited to clarify)

[1wd]

That would be easy to pronounce in German, but from the spelling it would never occur to a German that this is the correct pronunciation.

Fun sidenote: Since "Lieber" is German for "Dear" (as in "Dear Office, I am writing this letter to you ...") it would be quite confusing. (Also it would sound grammatically wrong, since "Lieber" is masculine, but Office is not.)

Alternatively "lieber" also means "preferably", so with that interpretation you would sound like saying "preferably Office". Oops.

[sandGorgon]

Asia is the problem. FWIW - its the largest market for open source software and the market that needs it more than any other market. I posted another comment on this thread - but in India, I have had ZERO success with getting people to know what I said ("libby office")

[evacchi]

so, neither?

Edit to reflect parent: I do think that's probably easier to pronounce for English-speaking people than both French and Spanish

[ekianjo]

? Libre is a french word in the first place. How is that hard to pronounce ?

[evacchi]

IMO it's unintuitive how to pronounce it to most non-French-speaking people.

[aoloe]

IMO only because you think that there must be one single way to pronounce it.

Who cares if somebody says laibr, laiber, leeber, ... Get over it and write a song like the one with the tomatoes...

Or are you one of the braves that are pushing Nike to change their name, because nobody can figure out that it should pronounced [nǐːkɛː]?

[babayega2]

But libre mean "free" in French whereas there is no such word in English. Why would it not be more easier for us French speaking peoples?

[zgramana]

FWIW, I think the closest English analog would be 'liberated', a synonym of 'free', though not that this a substantial improvement.

[evacchi]

That's not what I meant. What I meant is that it is harder to guess how to pronounce it to people that do not know French!