There are well recognized definitions for both open source and free software. There are people that think that the GPL is overly restrictive, but if they claim it is non-free they are using non-standard terminology and it's going to be hard to have a conversation with them.
Yes some Vcs want easy money by having people contribute to their non-free software that they can sell to some organizations and let some of their contributors do some things with, but not others, for gratis. I personally don't want to help with that as I believe strongly in user freedoms. I'm sure there are people who are willing to do it, but I think it is a bad direction to encourage in general.