Google SoC gives legitimacy to working of OSS to equal terms of having a paid internship. Many of the projects probably don't even meet your description of FOSS.

The Linux foundation would not exist if only individuals donated to it.

Most OSS suffers from a lack of maintainers with time as they rarely are paid and can't make a living from working on it. Company backed OSS doesn't suffer from this. Most popular "community" projects are held together by an assortment of company backed developers.

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coldtea 3 days ago | parent [-]

>The Linux foundation would not exist if only individuals donated to it

Many things would not exist if they had to exist properly. Doesn't mean them existing improperly is good.

>Company backed OSS doesn't suffer from this.

No, but suffers from a way worse issue: corporate control.

Which is why community FOSS has been going downhill since circa 2005.

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surajrmal 2 days ago | parent [-]

FOSS barely existed in 2005 compared to what it is today. Communities rarely stay the same as they grow larger, but that doesn't mean they are worse. Change is inevitable.

	▲	coldtea 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		>FOSS barely existed in 2005 compared to what it is today. On the contrary: it barely exists today. FOSS in (roughly speaking) 2005 and before was about a larger vision and a community. Not about mere access to code with specific licenses, or how many trillion dollar companies are depending on it. >Communities rarely stay the same as they grow larger, but that doesn't mean they are worse. . I'm not speaking about how communities in change in abstract (in which case doesn't mean necessarily for the worse). I'm speaking about what specific FOSS communities have had happened to them, and which I, and others, do find worse.