[diggan]

> How could you charge for a binary if people can just compile it on their own...?

You don't make a binary publicly available, then you put the binary behind a paywall.

Some examples:

- Ardour - Lets you pull down the source and compile locally for free, or you pay to use their compiled binaries. Author/creator of Ardour hangs around on HN, maybe they could share their experience if they see this.

- Radium - Another DAW like Ardour, does it the same way.

- Fritzing - Designer for PCBs, same approach, pay for the binaries if you'd like, but free to compile from source if you can

I'm sure there are many more examples out there, but these are the ones I thought about when I wrote my previous comment.