Honestly, I would prefer all themes with upsell to be filtered out into their own section of the directory, so it’s clear to visitors what themes are free and what themes are ‘free,’ Norén said in response to the discussion. “It would also reduce the incentive for theme shops to flood the directory with crippled themes.”

Some time ago, I suggested here that the theme review team should consider adding a “really-free” or “no-upsell” tag to the theme repository. All I got were responses from theme devs against this saying that there was nothing wrong with trying to make some money. The result is a directory flooded with crippled themes, with some minor really free exceptions, such as Norén’s themes, which are extremely hard to find.