As designed User needs download resource permission to rate, even for resources without a download.

[Liam W]

I think the long title explains it well enough...

If the resource doesn't have a download, a user without download permissions can (generally) view it. They therefore should be able to rate it.

But they can't - the download permission is needed.

I've been going round in circles with this on my test site...

 

[Mike]

I'm going to call this as designed for consistency sake and because the download permission does/can apply to fileless resources -- they can be set to not be viewable by people that can't download (the default).