> you owe them something
Definitely not.
The companies even sell products, for which everybody directly pays, and then owe even to the millions of users nothing once they have sold the product (actually sold the "license"). I've even had to buy the exactly same product (the license) more than once, every time I've changed the platform or even just changed the computer.
So if I publish anything as open source, free for anybody to use, I own even less to anybody with whom I don't have a paid contract for support.