It's tough for companies to fund individual open source developers using "contribution" kinds of models, because now they are essentially paying someone for ser

It's tough for companies to fund individual open source developers using "contribution" kinds of models, because now they are essentially paying someone for services in such a way that is entirely outside the bounds of the usual employment agreements, either at-will, full time employment or via a contractor agreement. It opens them up for a variety of legal liabilities. This is why the bigger projects start up complicated 501c organizations, which from my research appear to be quite burdensome to administer and also place restrictions on the project itself as to what circumstances money can be accepted.