>Absolutely not true. I worked for a Fortune 100 for 10 years. Free software was a HUGE stumbling block for us.

I've heard people say this many times. I believe large corporations would be better served with proprietary software because it allows them to also protect their own proprietary business models. The pursuit of money begets the pursuit of money (so to speak). Copyleft FLOSS is not a good fit for companies that want to have proprietary operations.

>>Ask the corporations who are using proprietary software atop the free software base. The free software base works on all of them. The unique software attributes of those apps are introduced purposefully to keep people locked in, to keep the cash cows in the corral, etc.
>No, they do not. Go to google.com and search for something, You have no way to know what results are paid and which aren't.

I don't see how your response relates to my response. I would augment my response by saying that companies introduce proprietary hardware variances which then require alternate drivers to function correctly. It's the same thing corporate America has been doing for decades in everything, cars, monitors, televisions. You buy essentially the exact same product as something else, but the bolt pattern is changed, or the cabling is different, or whatever. It's a purposeful variance intended to keep you in their corral.

>>Google tells you about this up front. You can choose not to use their services. Many don't.
>>>Does FLOSS take donations? Does it pay a salary to someone at the top?
>You didn't address my second question. If there were zero donations, how
>would that affect FLOSS?

I don't know. How would it affect FLOSS? There are countless FLOSS projects, and each of them operate differently. Some of them sell service for the products they give away, and make money that way. Others don't accept donations and just release it under copyleft because they have a special gift and talent and want to share. Others operate differently.

Many people have day jobs and do FLOSS as either part of those day jobs, or out of the goodness of their heart, a gift for their fellow man. Highly variable. Companies like the authors of Firefox make money by using other people's contributions. They have a core set of developers, but let others on the web also contribute fixes to better aim, test and direct their product. The people who contribute there do so for personal reasons, not all of which are monetary.