If I said "free dogs" does it mean I'm giving away dogs for free or are demanding that they be freed? Maybe referring to dogs that have escaped captivity? It doesn't hurt to disambiguate, particularly in the context where you chose to take issue with it.
A "free dogs" sign at a dog shelter would indicate them giving them away for free (they usually don't intentionally). (And still your own cost of transporting etc)
A "free dogs" sign on a protestors slogan outside a dog breeding for food factory, probaly something different.
In context of software, free software creates the expection free of cost mostly.
And by now slowly and slowly, also free to do what I want. Sort of. Because there is this ideological battle of what is more freedom, free also to comercialize again, or is more freedom to allow anything? And that battle and different definitions, is pretty confusing to outsiders. The GNU version I don't like for that reason.
"To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis."
It makes things confusing without need. Result is, outsiders don't help so much or want to get involved.
I don't get it. If you explicitly acknowledge that"free software" is ambiguous, how does clarifying it by adding (free as in beer/speech) make things more confusing, instead of less?
The whole point is that the phrase "free software" has nothing to do with money.
It almost seems like you want to make things simpler by just merging the two concepts. But that's fundamentally not what the movement is about.
