Even then, it can be argued that a national government publishing an app for free is not commercial use.
Details about how the GPL license prevents distribution, for example via the Apple App Store, without a further licensing agreement beyond the GPL license, can be seen here at the Free Software Foundation’s website (FSF wrote the GPL license).
The origin of the notes https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance
More useful detail https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...
Excerpt from the last document:
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Along the same lines, we'll be talking about GPLv2 specifically in this blog post, since that's the license at issue, but this analysis would apply to all versions of the GNU GPL and AGPL. Section 6 of GPLv2 says:
Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
This last sentence is a crucial part of the strong copyleft in the GPL and AGPL: it prevents distributors from using separate legal agreements, like Terms of Service or NDAs, to take away the freedoms that the license is supposed to grant. This is the license condition that Apple is violating when it distributes GPL-covered software through the App Store.
But does not allow Tivoization, something that the App store does. This is clearly a violation of the license.