The clone thing is more controversial than it appears at first. What actually happened was more like this:
1) The original NanoVNA developer publishes the design and quits the field.
2) OwoComm redesigns it for wider coverage, making extensive changes and substantial improvements. She releases the design under the GPL.
3) Some people in China start building clones such as the SAA-2N and making useful improvements of their own. They sell these clones at ridiculously low prices, which are only slightly profitable if at all.
4) OwoComm goes nonlinear and attacks the cloners with everything she has. (Un)fortunately she doesn't have much, because the GPL contains no anti-dumping provisions and the cloners did nothing to violate the extremely liberal license she used.
5) OwoComm does the only thing that makes sense, and returns to the drawing board to create an improved design of her own. Unfortunately the newer designs are closed, due to her previous negative experience with cloners.
It's more complicated than this, in that some of the recent clones have been accused of violating the GPL by failing to release their modified sources. But OwoComm has also not reacted in the most professional manner. The clone vendor hugen, in particular, has added quite a bit of value to the product and (as far as I can tell) has behaved in good faith, but he has been at the top of OwoComm's (s)hit list since the SAA-2N's release.
Kind of a bummer, because these are all some very talented engineers who have, collectively, delivered some amazing hardware to lots of people who would otherwise have been unable to afford anything like it. It's also true that there have been a lot of complete garbage clones released, but the one I mentioned is not one of them. It's a legitimately incredible piece of hardware. Painting all of the clones with the same brush does not capture the reality of the situation.