In reply to Nick Haskins.

It is true that having a product open on Github is not exactly the same as giving the product away for free. In many cases, the code on the repository will not be identical to what is downloaded upon purchase as is the case with our premium plugin. Many repos contain unit tests, un-minified assets and other things that are processed and changed or removed when a deployment script is run for each release. That way the files downloaded at purchase are just the stripped down, production ready files and not the development tools.

In addition, when leaving a repository open, it is simple to communicate to end users that there is no guarantee that this code base is safe to use on a live site. A tested, production ready code base can be obtained via purchase elsewhere. This can deter most people from attempting to skip the purchase and just use the code from Github. In addition, it is easy to make clear that use of the code on Github comes with no promise of support or updates or any other incentives provided where the product is for sale.

In the end, I believe that most WordPress products are ridiculously cheap and most people are willing to pay the nominal fees in order to get a product that is stable, supported and updated.