this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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You’re allowed, but as long as anyone else can do it for free, you can’t build a business model on selling it. At most you can sell something else (support, cloud compute, some solution that makes using it easier etc.).
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. What you said is true.
It reminded me of an older writing about it:
Open source doesn’t make money because it isn’t designed to make money
You can build a business model on selling it, but you can't stop someone else doing the same.
Which means in the long run the cost will get down to 0.
The moment the code and redistribution rights are out in the open, anyone who tries to charge for it faces competition from people charging less — and eventually from people charging nothing. The economic pressure pushes the price down to the cost of copying, which in the digital world is effectively zero.
Canonical seems to make some decent money off of their services.