Releasing some software open source, having it gain popularity (just from being open source) and then saying you can't make money of it seems disingenuous to me

Releasing some software open source, having it gain popularity (just from being open source) and then saying you can't make money of it seems disingenuous to me. The project would not have been as popular if it hadn't been open source in the first place. You can't have it both ways. Making money directly of an open source project is indeed difficult. But that also isn't the promise of open source. The promise is that many groups come together to work on an open source project for mutual benefit. I had the privilege to work on several open source projects for my employer. Some of these were pretty important to what we are doing, but they were not the direct products we would sell. That worked remarkably well! I still work on open source, for work, and some in my spare time.