For me, that would be Secure CRT. I have yet to find a terminal emulator that matches its feature set. If you regularly manage hundreds of machines using various connection protocols (serial and ssh mostly in my case) It’s worth the $$$, and so far there hasn’t been any subscription nonsense. I liked using it at work so much I forked over the dough to have it at home.
None of the free alternatives do everything I need.
I’ll also mention a few iOS apps. One is Sun Surveyor. It’s an AR app that shows you the position of the sun, moon, and galactic center at any given time. The other would have to be Radarscope. It’s a weather radar app, but it’s a really good weather radar app.
Just seems like a weirdly arbritray distinction to who should or shouldn’t be able to profit from their work. Like just because the maker of say Fusion Studio (video composting software) aren’t making something to illicit an emotional response from you they shouldn’t be able to charge for what they do?
In no other sphere would this distinction exist, imagine if all non-fiction books were free but you still had to pay for novels? Or because a bus is a utilitarian vehicle it’s manufacturer shouldn’t be allowed to be paid for it but because a Farrari exists for the pleasure of driving it, they can charge you to buy one.
edit: I do see the point about the fixed vs open ended though
I want to be explicit. I’m not at all saying people “shouldn’t be able to profit from their work”. No way; all labor should be rewarded. I’m just saying I can see why works of art are somewhat different than tools. You use fiction versus non-fiction books as an example, but I’m actually putting those in the same box as games and movies.
I generally prefer FOSS for practical and ethical reasons, but I have no problem with paid software or people being paid to write free software. I think most software can be done better by an interested community. Free software is just better in many cases. Sometimes that is true with games too though. Enemy Territory, for example.