following the origins of the agile scrum tests certification, the response of this question :
"scrum master and product owner can be the same"
is different.
When I read the official scrum guide I don't find any text about this assertation.
How to know the very official response of this question ?
What is the response ?
Dealing with release of the certification the response can be different ?
The "official" response per the Scrum Guide may be summarised as: "If it does not exclude it, then it can be done.
But just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean that you should.
While the Product Owner and Scrum Master can indeed be the same person, I strongly discourage it. This is because the two roles have conflicting accountabilities and it is wholly unreasonable to expect one person to have to balance them.