“Commercial” is not the opposite of Free-Libre / Open Source Software

David A. Wheeler presents an essay that looks at how commercial and open-source software are not mutually exclusive entities. "When I talk with with other people about Free-Libre / Open Source Software (FLOSS), I still hear a lot of people mistakenly use the term “commercial software” as if it had the opposite meaning of FLOSS (aka open source software, Free-Libre Software, or OSS/FS). That’s in spite of the rise in commercial development and support for FLOSS, most FLOSS projects’ goal to incorporate improvements, which are actually a form of financial gain, official definitions of “commercial item” that include FLOSS, and FLOSS licenses and projects that clearly approve of commercial support. Terms like “closed source” or “proprietary software” are plausible antonyms of FLOSS, but “commercial” is absurd as an antonym."

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