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I would like to add a tag to indicate that an app is free for commercial use.

But, being a Mawg of very little brain, I lack the imagination to name it succinctly.

Who can help?

[Update] I prefer to use free software, I also prefer to use the same software at home and in the office. Not all "free" (as in beer) software is free for commercial use.

See, for instance TeamViewer (sorry, I am behind a company firewall which won't let me access the site in order to post more info here).

Thus, the tag is not enough for me. I want to explicitly request that the software is - what's the best title for it? Just that?

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  • In which case would such a tag be useful? If OP looks for software that is "free for commercial use", the tag gratis applies.
    – unor
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 15:10
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    Not all "gratis" is free for non-home use. Look at TeamViewer, for instance. I will update the question to explain why I want it.
    – Mawg
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 15:13

2 Answers 2

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I don’t think that we should have a tag for this. The tag and a clarification in the question body cover this.

If OP says they need a software that is free for commercial use (and tag it with ), answers shouldn’t recommend a software that is only gratis for non-commercial use.

The fact that the same software is available gratis under some conditions (for private use, in specific countries, or whatever) and non-gratis under some other conditions (for commercial use, etc.), doesn’t make this software necessarily a match for a question that is tagged . Answerers always have to take more specific restrictions from the question body into account.

That said, I could see a benefit for people that browse answers and only look for software that is gratis for commercial use (and don’t want to go through recommendations for gratis software where it’s not specified that it can be used commercially).
But I’m under the impression that this isn’t such a big use case that it warrants a specialized tag, partly because this model only applies to a relatively small set of software, and partly because especially the commercial users are typically more willing to pay for software (while they might prefer gratis software, I think they more often than not don’t require it to be gratis, so the tag, or the proposed tag, shouldn’t be used then in the first place).

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    Full ack here. Most commercial users I've got to know rather pay huge sums for crap than using free and open source masterpieces (confusing high price with high quality). There might be exceptions, but so far I've not met one :)
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 18:53
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    “the commercial users are typically more willing to pay for software” That's not at all true. Commercial users are more likely to pay for expensive software, but less likely to pay for relatively cheap software, especially non-line-of-business software, because of the bureaucracy needed to get an expense validated by someone who has no idea how the purchase would benefit the company.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 19:53
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    @Gilles: Even less likely than private/non-commercial users? -- And would you say this is true for the whole spectrum of commercial users? I could imagine the bureaucracy issue you mentioned only applies to rather big companies, but not small ones or self-employed people.
    – unor
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 20:44
  • Well, it would have been nice to be able to search on such a tag,. But I imagine that it I create it, it will be deleted. So, I will just forget the idea (although I cannot see how it could cause any harm)
    – Mawg
    Commented Dec 3, 2015 at 11:19
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    @Mawg: +2/-0 on this answer vs. +2/0 on your question isn’t really a decision against or for it, so things might still develop.
    – unor
    Commented Dec 3, 2015 at 12:09
  • Three years later, I was just about to ask the same question, when the system suggested this question, which I had forgotten. Much of my questioning is for such apps, and I see a fair number of questions asking for development aps. Is anyone strongly for or against such a tag?
    – Mawg
    Commented Sep 12, 2018 at 6:53
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After some research, there doesn't seem to be a single-word to describe this. What about ?

Perhaps just or in combination with ?

That said, as unor's answer describes, I'm not sure we even need a tag for this - clarification in the question body might be enough.

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  • I don't think a tag like gratis-commercial is either good nor needed. My first though was rather something like your second paragraph; but how much use would that be? Do we expect that frequently needed? I remember there were some rules to when to create a tag: a) when it comes to frequency of use, and b) I'm not sure whether e.g. business already counts as meta-tag :)
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 19:31
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    @Izzy I'm not sure business would count as a meta tag, but I do agree that it probably won't be frequently needed. I'm definitely leaning more toward just using gratis with a clarification in the body.
    – user46
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 20:34
  • So do I – guess we're sailing the same boat :)
    – Izzy
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 20:40
  • Too many questions and proposals in this answer. I don't want to upvote the gratis-commercial proposal.
    – Thomas Weller
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 23:12

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