[dragonwriter]

"Commercial" is commonly used to mean "not Open Source" or "not Free Software", and in that usage not being Open Source does mean that it is "commercial".

Properly speaking, "commercial" is an orthogonal concern to "Open Source" -- if software is sold by a merchant under a license, that license is commercial, whether or not the license is also an Open Source license.

You seem to want to create a new use of "commercial" where it on a continuum with "Open Source" but not merely the negation of "Open Source", such that there would be "Commercial" and then some poorly specified "gray area" and then "Open Source". I'm not sure that this is either a particularly good use of the term "commercial", nor a particularly useful concept regardless of the terminology. Non-Open Source or non-Free licenses always permit you to do something with the software (that's why they are "licenses").

[hhm]

Your definition (in the first line) would imply that closed-source freeware is commercial, I don't agree with that. I do agree that commercial is orthogonal to open source.

So my original point about the license not being properly commercial stands. I do agree with you that it is not really proper to claim that there is a spectrum between commercial and open source.

[nailer]

dragonwriter's not defining anything in his first line, he's pointing out a common misconception.

In reality, the 'opposite' of Open Source is proprietary. There is commercial Open Source (Red Hat), and proprietary software with source code available (Unreal SDK).

[hhm]

Then I agree with you both. Thanks for the clarification.