Comment by kelnos

> 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.