Yes, Indie = Independent (from big companies/sponsors).
Unfortunately, there are a lot confusion between amateur game development and indie game development out there.
It's fine to be an amateur, everybody needs a beginning before becoming professional, I'm an amateur music composer myself, but I'd never describe me as an indie music developer just because of that
I think freelance would be another word. Though there are indie studios as well. The people working there are not independant as such, the whole studio is. I am not sure where the line is, to separate non indie from indie. Something like Amplitude has tags indie for Endless Space 2, but not for Humankind. If we wanna take the consensus tagging on Steam as a measure.
