This is a bit like saying working unpaid for a few months wasn't free labor because you got a paid job afterwards. The company still took the monetary value of

This is a bit like saying working unpaid for a few months wasn't free labor because you got a paid job afterwards. The company still took the monetary value of your labor. At best, it can be said that the monetary value of the labor of open source contributors has been paid, to some degree, to everyone using the software, and the overlap between users and contributors is high.