I feel what we need is not this, but rather a cultural change among the corporate consumers of open source. I'm arguing for this at my employer: that we set up a fund to support open source libraries that we rely on for our products, with a regular payout for products that we are using.

So far it isn't easy going: what reason is there for paying developers who already give us their work for free? Who do we even pay, if there are multiple maintainers? etc. So far I've come up with "goodwill" and "responsible citizenship" (i.e. maintain the ecosystem that sustains you), and I'm drawing a blank on that last question...

For me the most compelling argument here is that you are paying to continue to rely on the stated assumption.

It is assumed that the developers will continue to give something for free, but that will not be true forever. With support, it will be true for longer.

I 100% agree with you, and I applaud your efforts.

However, my experience is that procurement teams will not pay unless they are required to. Once they are required to, that's what they do. Charity, good will, and responsible citizenship are not arguments to move a procurement team.

But legal... the legal team is very effective at moving the procurement team.

Some open source projects have paid benefits for donors, like a private chat and/or issue tracker. Combine that with a very basic EULA/SLA, and it becomes nore easily justifiable as a business expense.

I think this could help lead to the corporate change you're hoping for.