They do, but indirectly. They pay Red Hat (RHEL) or SuSE or another commercial vendor for support. That vendor then hires programmers who contribute patches b

They do, but indirectly. They pay Red Hat (RHEL) or SuSE or another commercial vendor for support. That vendor then hires programmers who contribute patches back to the Linux kernel and user space apps. For critical projects, they hire core team members.