It seems to convey a bit of humor that way, too.
And to answer the question who benefits (economically)?
My naive take is that what you have is like the confederation in Star Wars (I’m not much of a Star Wars fan so forgive any mistakes there) teaming up against the evil empire i.e. MS.
I think the IBM’s, Novells, etc. etc. benefit indirectly if MS can be defanged. These companies may also get to sell goods and services that they profit from but my take has always been that this is first and foremost and anti-MS effort and linux just happened to be a convenient vehicle from which to wage the campaign.
My $.02 obviously.