alt Hacker News> A user has asked if GNU Unifont can be used with commercial (non-free) software.
One can be forgiven for thinking the author means to imply that all commercial software is non-free. It is a further disappointment that anyone has to ask.
Open source was right to get rid of the intentional and unintentionally anti-commercial motifs that only got in the way of paid open source development.
Replies
> One can be forgiven for thinking the author means to imply that all commercial software is non-free.
Do they mean to imply this? It can also be read as a clarification about the mentioned software, not all commercial software in general. Could just be poor wording.
> Open source was right to get rid of the intentional and unintentionally anti-commercial motifs that only got in the way of paid open source development.
Open source did succeed in avoiding the problem present in English language, but in doing so, shifted focus away from freedom and onto different confusing motifs. A rare word like 'libre' arguably does an even better job while staying true to the original ideas behind the term 'free'.
There's also the implication that all non-commercial software is free. There's plenty of non-free (as in libre) software released by hobbyists.
Ironically, it's the FSF which discourages the use of "commercial" to mean "non-free":
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#Commer...