From http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62035655,00.htm:
Chizen characterized the open-source community as taking its inspiration from commercial companies. "The open-source community takes a lot of the practices and some of the ideas from commercial companies and enhances them," he said. "If we didn’t exist, there would be less to enhance."
So, basically, it’s okay for companies to exploit copyright and patent law, because if they didn’t the free software world wouldn’t know what to do with itself. Or something. What a lot of arse.