[cyphar]

A very large number of free software projects are commercial (either because distributions sell support for them, or the project itself costs money). The license for a piece of software has nothing to do with whether you sell it or give it away for free. Richard Stallman used to sell copies of GNU Emacs back in the day.

[dahart]

Very true. But what's interesting and non-obvious about the way the DOD defines "commercial" is that it doesn't depend on money exchange (or lack of money exchange) at all, and that's what that article by David Wheeler is trying to say.

The DOD defines software commerce as anything available to the public and used for any non-government purposes.

http://dodcio.defense.gov/Open-Source-Software-FAQ/#Q:_Is_op...

So to take your comment one step further, for some organizations, the definition of commercial also has nothing to do with whether you sell it or give it away for free, even though many people reasonably assume commerce==sales.