Comment by squigz
> How do I detect when said support is above board or when there are other factors?
> As a business owner How do I know these decisions are made in good faith? As a shareholder how much of this am I prepared to tolerate?
Hypotheticals that I'm not going to bother trying to answer, because that's going to depend on the business, the business owners, the projects they choose to support, and a myriad of other factors. Good luck getting some generic answer to such questions.
> In other words how do I choose which projects to support?
You're right. Impossible to decide, so let's not even try.
Or, like, do some research and have a discussion to determine which of the various FOSS your company uses that could do with some funding. Evaluate them individually. Decide on a monetary limit. Re-evaluate regularly. You know, normal business accountability things, right?
> You know, normal business accountability things, right?
No, not at all. A normal business accountability thing would involve not paying for something when you don't have to. Or, rather, not paying when paying doesn't grant additional value beyond what not paying gives you.
For the most part, a company that uses an open source project will not see any upside if they pay. Collectively, yes, it would be better to financially support the projects that companies depend on, but on an individual basis, a company logically sees no reason to pay.
And even if the worst happens, say the sole maintainer gets hit by a bus and dies... most companies will be content to wait and see, and deal with that problem if and when it happens, not before then.