Consider also, quite importantly, that a large volume of the work done on any Linux-based operating system is and has been done entirely without money changing hands.
You're being pedantic. The users point is that neither the Linux foundation, Linux Users, or Linus Torvalds pays people to contribute to the kernel.
While one company may pay its employees to write code for the Linux kernel, that company is still writing the code and contributing it to Linux for free.
