The title should be changed to "OSS developers are being screwed over by companies". It's a fundamental clash of OSS principles and capitalism. At my company we don't use that much OSS, because we're in embedded, but I'm not aware of a slush fund, there's no way for a normal employee to make this happen. It's fundamental to capitalism that companies maximize profits. Individually it's always better to use OSS, but not pay for it. They'll pay only if they get something in return, which they wouldn't get otherwise.<p>OSS developers need to have split licenses between corporate and private use. Corporate use has licensing costs. Otherwise they don't get paid.<p>BTW the pre-fab wall makers also don't hand out the walls for free and ask for donations later. Because they'd get 0. Business is business.