(I didn't read this comment before as I simply forgot about this thread at the time; I imagine you won't see this reply, now, though ;P. And, sadly, I can almost guarantee I won't see a reply to this message if you did leave one, for reasons even deeper and more compounded.)
FWIW, I feel like there is nuance that is being lost in your sentence about whether your statement was somehow either incorrect or correct. My half-acknowledgement of the premise would to me indicate that neither absolute on such a statement could be "correct"?
The server--which is in that exact same monorepo you found, it being a monorepo and all ;P--can be easily compiled (or merely downloaded from the GitHub releases) and it doesn't take too much messing around with it to run it... as a developer (not an end user) You certainly don't need to be a "partner".
The client, also, will happily connect to you... if the user "opts our" of only using a list of people that happens to right now only include "partners". This is where I appreciate that the software--right now--has not a "walled" garden but a lightly-fenced garden: the difference is important, as anyone who wants to can go play outside the walls. This isn't like Apple or Facebook: the term "walled garden" simply doesn't apply.
The "half-acknowledgement" is, of course, that if not many people are playing outside the garden then you are likely going to be lonely. But as there is no wall, the project absolutely let's you sell bandwidth there... there just aren't many buyers. You see how that's different, right?
In some sense, being allowed to do something isn't a guarantee that it is a good idea. Imagine a world where anyone can make a restaurant, but almost all customers search for food on Yelp... is it true that only Yelp partners can sell food? No: anyone can sell food! But I appreciate--in that it isn't black and white--that it isn't exactly true that anyone can succeed at selling food.
And this is the rub, right? It is like the difference between a right to sell something and a guarantee of customers, which are related in a certain sense but aren't even slightly the same :(.
This is then why I wanted to ask after where you came to the quick idea that, with Orchid, one """can't become a "miner" (sell bandwidth) without becoming a partner""", as that statement isn't correct (but I appreciate neither is its opposite!!) in a way that makes me sad, as there are a lot of projects for which it is correct: where there are walls of authentication and permission or softwares that must be licensed... and I am very proud that Orchid isn't that?
That said, I feel like--with your emphasis on documentation (not in the passing way I mentioned it, which would include high-level discussion, but some expectation of "here is how to do it")--you are somewhat "moving the goalpost": instead of analyzing whether the software does or allows something, you are asking whether the project encourages something... and that is just very very different to me.
The reality is that--partner or not--you will probably be unhappy selling bandwidth as there isn't much traffic being purchased on the system right now, and I would rather not guide people down paths that will make them unhappy... particularly when I know that, if it were actually profitable, there would be a large cottage industry of third-party guides telling you how to do it ;P.