We just did this with OPNSense. We wanted to use their product for educational purposes. They gave us free licenses... I went to my management team and argued

We just did this with OPNSense. We wanted to use their product for educational purposes. They gave us free licenses... I went to my management team and argued for finding a way to get them money... So now we're working on a one-time professional service to talk to their devs on stuff we could probably figure out on our own.. but "might save money/time just asking them"... and a yearly subscription for "any support needs we might need" (up to 10 hours/year) Though their model was a bit easier to work in... A bit harder to do with things like Apache projects...