[patrickaljord]

Open Source projects don't generate profit by themselves so if you're expecting dividends or something you're not going to get any. If your company makes use of badly funded open source projects then it makes sense to donate first to make sure the project keeps existing and second it's good publicity to attract devs. If you're talking about companies whose product is open source such as mongodb or redhat, you must think of these companies as service companies (like IBM) and as such you should check the quality of their dev and sales service capacity to sell well, service contracts. Not sure if this answers your question.