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by orangeshark 2242 days ago
> And why can't something be open source when it's not free as in free beer

There is nothing preventing you from charging a fee for Open Source or even for Free Software. You only need to distribute source code to users of your software. That means it does not need to be publicly available on a site like Github. You need to remember that users who receive the software and source code are still allowed to distribute your software for a fee or even free. This method of selling software is not common at all though, so I can't really name any successful projects doing it.

> So why can't this software be called open source, when the source is... open?

The reason you can't call software like that as Open Source is because Open Source has a clear definition as defined by the Open Source Initiative[1]. Free Software has a definition as well[2]. The Open Source definition is a more expanded and detailed version of the Free Software's Four Freedoms. If the license you use for your software does not allow the things as described by those definitions, you can't call it Open Source or Free Software.

[1]:https://opensource.org/osd [2]:https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html