Participation in open source requires you to surrender your monopoly over commercial exploitation. This is a profound point about free and open source software which seems to be causing a lot of companies to struggle with their understanding of the philosophy of FOSS

This is an essential, non-negotiable requirement of free and open-source software, and a reality you must face if you want to reap the benefits of the FOSS ecosystem. Anyone can monetize your code. That includes you, and me, all of your contributors, your competitors, Amazon and Google, and everyone else.

It’s quite common for people other than you to make money from your free and open source software works. Some will incorporate them into their own products to sell, some will develop an expertise with it and sell their skills as a consultant, some will re-package it in an easy-to-use fashion and charge people for the service. Others might come up with even more creative ways to monetize the software, like writing books about it. It will create wealth for everyone, not just the original authors. And if you want it to create wealth for you, you are responsible for figuring out how. Building a business requires more work than just writing the software.

This seemed like a relevant post to link, given recent events.