But it's voluntary. When a company (or most individuals) get the product for free, there is little incentive to pay anything.

I think the notion that people (and companies) pay for proprietary software because there is support or some other reasons are complete BS. They pay for software because they have to in order to use it. It's just a cost of doing business.

As free software has become viable (high quality) in some areas, business folks are more willing to allow it. The primary concern is "can it do the job". The second is how much will it cost me?

We were discussing “hire a developer to contribute” vs “financial contribution”. Of course it’s voluntary and the incentive is low, but that’s off topic.

That's what they do to contribute financially to software development. It's called buying a license.

Sure, sometimes they buy closed sourcr licenses, but as a corporation providing services to a third party you don't care about the license - you care very much the software adds the value to the output of the employee who uses it.

The GP was talking about hiring a developer to contribute. I pointed out that financial support is an option. Yes, licensing is one model, but a check is also valid.