See how in my comment I use 4 synonyms for "free", including "gratis"? That was not just trying to sound cool. That was trying (and evidently, failing, given you're not the only one) to pre-empt this exact point.
> It's entirely possible to sell free software.
This is much more controversial in the FOSS space than it seems to outsiders.
There is the obvious problem that one of the Freedoms involves the ability to take your purchased copy and give it away 'gratis' to everyone else, thus undercutting the market for the original author.
And this begs the question: Can I practically charge money for the freedoms? Must it be gratis?
It would be relatively easy to write a license with a royalty fee. Every time you distribute a copy of the fork, you must pay the original author. This would be a cromulent way to get around the piracy problem.
Except it is deeply controversial. To the point where even the FSF tries to play games around "selling the software" versus "selling the service of providing a download of the software".
In practice, no you can't really sell Free Software. Just look at all the startups that were Open Source and immediately shut that down when the infinite free venture capital ran out.
> Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation imo. I don't count it as Free Software at all.
I simply do not care about the designation of "Free Software". It sucks and has painted itself into a corner. Modern policing of it's meaning (especially by the OSI which hilariously tries to pretend that "Open Source" is subject to FOSS definitions) is entirely just hypocrisy favouring the GPL.
If you want to get paid, cash money, just fucking put it in the license. Use a user agreement like everyone else on the planet.
If you want it to be Free, slap a 'gratis' license on there and don't get upset when companies don't give anything back.