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Red Hat sells GPL'ed software for billions. Oracle tried to do the same. Amazon created a whole ecosystem (AWS) around GPL'ed code. Even M$ embraces GPL.

Can you name the problem, please?

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Red Hat sells support, their software is free of charge. This is the closest thing to a viable business model around GPL code, and if you look at most companies doing this they are struggling. Red Hat was lucky/smart enough to get i to the government space and sell based on their rock-solid security. If your GPL software is unappetizing or irrelevant to the government world, you can't get that revenue stream going.

Amazon "commoditizes their complement" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476266) by making open-source easy to use, and hopefully you'll exit through the gift shop and drop some chunky spend on their hosting services.

If your code is the actual valuable thing (for instance, a spreadsheet program that makes Excel look like a joke), then giving the code away for free doesn't give you any path to make money.

Selling exemptions is a thing.

Oh right, that's the other business model that probably works. It does diminish your ability to take outside contributions, because you'll need a CLA. (IANAL)

"Can you name the problem, please?"

Sure thing. I guess you missed where I already said: google "mit vs gpl"

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