Comment by rmunn

It would be bad if there weren't a significant number of companies paying for work on Linux to continue, because so many of them are benefiting from it, and at least some of them realize that ensuring sustainability into the future is a good idea and worth investing a salary or two. (As in, paying some of their employees to work on Linux).

Don't fall into the trap of assuming "A big company did it / paid for it to be done, therefore it must be bad". I see that mindset (which I'll call anti-corporatist) on HN from time to time. Companies are made up of people, and it's the people that make the decisions. Some people are good-natured, some are greedy and grasping. And the company that acted one way one decade can turn around and act completely differently the next decade, because a different person was at the helm.

Fundamentally, it's about the people, not the companies. The anti-corporatist mindset is prone to forgetting that.