Of course RMS understood the overtone perfectly, but Vrije Universiteit (vu.nl) is the real name of the university. Its name can be translated to "liberated university". As I understand it, it's a free university in the sense that historically, students of all religions were eligible to attend, as opposed to e.g. Katholieke Universiteit which was Catholic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrije_Universiteit_Amsterdam

The librarated part means free from government control. Until the VU all Dutch universities belonged (indirectly) to the Dutch government.

Some universities, especially in Latin America, use the term "autonomous". Is that the same thing is "free" in this context?

Yes. Absence of direct control by the government. The VU was founded for religious reasons, so the main goal was to be able to teach theology according to the particular type of protestant Christianity that the founders of the VU believed in.

Sounds like Katholieke Universiteit ought to release their own Compiler Kit ;)

I think the part that he - and you - missed is that tuition at the time was entirely free, so it wasn't just 'free' in one sense of the word.

Vrije as in "Not Catholic", not as in beer.

The adjective meaning "free" is "vrij" or "vrije" in Dutch.

Amusingly, the Dutch verb "vrijen" does, in fact, mean to have sex.

I like the Afrikaans (evolved from Dutch) even better for its streamlined spelling and double-use depending on context:

Vry == "free" (noun) or "to court/kiss/have sex" (verb, contextual).

You really just made an account now to make that point?

his comment was more useful than yours

He made an account name called vrijen which is having sex in dutch.. as he himself explained. Not sure if you noticed that part