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> But I had no idea that it also meant that code automatically became gratis for everyone.

I think it's common sense. If I sell you a software and provide you the source code with a GPL license, you are free to publish the code online for everyone to download free. So yes, open source invariably implies no cost to end user.

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You are free, but won't necessarily do it. At a previous company, 90%+ of the code I wrote was (A/L)GPL licensed, yet we sold it (to companies) and our clients never redistributed it. The only code available publicly was the one we purposefully shared.

This probably wouldn't work in many cases (particularly consumer software), but a trucking company or a clothes manufacturer has no interest in becoming a software distributor. They just like not being locked-in to us.

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