Actually, no, the author is correct. Most people don't get the licenses correct nor truly understand them. The notions of "free" vs. "open" are often conflated

Actually, no, the author is correct. Most people don't get the licenses correct nor truly understand them. The notions of "free" vs. "open" are often conflated or not well defined. This author has correctly identified the distinction and tries to lay it out in human terms. Before the Internet went mainstream, I used to see a lot more GPL software that was pay-for. If you paid and got the binary, then the GPL entitled you to also get the source code. But if you didn't pay, there was no way to get anything since it wasn't distributed to you.