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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Asklemmy
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In addition to other reasons already given, commercial software may contain licensed code, libraries, assets, trademarks, and other IP that cannot legally be given away for free, or under an open source licence.
Sure, it may be possible to strip those things out, but that may leave the software broken or fundamentally changed, and it may be a significant amount of work to do, which am author or publisher is not likely to spend on abandoned software, especially if their free release would compete with any current products.
It's a whole licensing thing where they have very little to gain but a lot to lose. Intelectual property is very important in the IT world, companies tend to keep their work for themselves.