If you look at their current behaviour only, then yes, maybe, and we could
add a number of other Big Data corporations to the list. But if you take the
history of these tech various corporations into account, some are poor allies
(eg Google), while others are enemies (eg Microsoft).
Google, for their sins, has paid for huge contributions to free code. In some
case their engineers have created entire new packages of free code from
scratch on company time. They also fund the Summer of Code, which benefits a
wide range of external open source projects.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has a special place in hell because it spent
about a decade funding a whole toolbox of dirty tricks in an attempt to block
GNU/Linux from taking any of its server or desktop market. Chris Anderson of
Wired tells this story in his book 'Free', which I'm reading at the moment,
although I hesitate to recommend it as it's highly biased towards the OSI
version of the history of free software and is unfair to Stallman,
understating his contribution (eg the GPL and the GNU Project making Linux
kernel possible), and making inaccurate claims that he is an "anticaptialist"
(that wouldn't be a bad thing IMHO, it's just wrong).
