How are you a non-profit if you pay a salary to you employees and allow your suppliers to make a profit?. They act as a 'low profit' company, but they do make profits.
Do you realise that non-profit means that you just don't have leftover cash at the end of the year in your balance sheet? Non-profits pay their employees and their suppliers, their financial situation has absolutely nothing to do with what you are implying.
I think the gp’s point is that to a lot of entities (employees, suppliers) there is little difference between for profit and non profit. And if your nonprofit is passing profit along to a for profit ... you can see how the lines blur. Maybe a way to interpret the above comment is that the incentive structure for many people involved is not significantly impacted by the nonprofit status. And non profits can have money left over at the end of the year, they just don’t distribute it to shareholders.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity registered in England and Wales. "The object of the charity is to further the advancement of education of adults and children, particularly in the field of Computers, Computer Science and related subjects." They have a trading subsidiary.
Anyone sufficiently cynical (not me) can read the accounts of both entities:
I thought being a non-profit meant you had goals that weren't profit; there are non-profits with billion dollar endowments that presumably have leftover cash on their balance sheet...