2009/1/1 Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org:
because there is a dispute about the meaning of the terms. There is no dispute about the meaning of the terms 'commercial' and 'proprietary'.
If it were that simple RMS would not have to maintain this. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Commercial
"In the first decade of the free software movement, free software packages were almost always noncommercial; the components of the GNU/Linux operating system were developed by individuals or by nonprofit organizations such as the FSF and universities. Later, in the 90s, free commercial software started to appear."