[HiTech RedNeck]

Even in the case of the so called "free-as-in-beer" users, quite often they will have someone on staff who
will choose to donate something significant to the GNU world.

This may be for the sake of making a reputation for themselves if nothing else; it can be a cool thing to put on a resume because the prospective next employer can SEE what the guy did -- he can't do that with a piece of proprietary code.

[Bush2000]

You mean "free-as-in-loader" users.