Trekkie, yes, public domain means someone could sell the item. Public domain means there is NO copyright. None. Nada. It belongs to society as a whole, and any individual can do ANYTHING they want with it. I doubt there are many public domain items in freestuff.

I STRONGLY agree with the decision to make the default non-commercial use only. My only suggestion there would be to make that "personal use only", which might be clearer to some who are confused by the term "non-commercial".

The simple fact is, if you use something that has a personal use only license commercially, you are opening yourself up for trouble, no matter how it was tagged. It is the EULA that matters, not the tag on Renderosity or any other site. Given that, if you download something that is marked non-commercial and find it can be used commercially, no harm is done. If you download something marked commercial OK and find out later it can't be used commercially, harm may be done, either in the lost time to replace it or even a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

As for the unimaginable state of mind that would not allow a free item to be used for profit, not everyone comes from the same culture. Some societies/religions/other groups consider using a gift for profit to be unimaginably rude, or insulting, or just plain unacceptable. They find the state of mind that would make someone even try to be unimaginable. The fact that their paradigm is different than yours does not make it inferior.

Poser Freebie Bitch and Moan Club...