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That article is highly deceptive if not to say downright wrong. macOS (Mac OSX) has never been "free". You pay for it (and future supported upgrades) as part of the price of Mac. You are confusing "free" as in freely available, with free to use except under license conditions.
Yeah, it is highly deceptive. If you go to eBay and type in "MacOS USB Installers" you will see hundreds of sellers selling it illegally there.
 
I did find this at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

This part is interesting:

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code...

why, do you have the source code of macOS lol. this is irrelevant (as others already mentioned).
 
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