The contract details are outlined in the blog post. Depending on the number of hours worked to fix some issues, it is likely fair.

  > Contract terms were roughly as follows:  
  > * Uber reports issues to github.com/ziglang/zig and pings Loris.  
  > * Loris assigns it to someone in ZSF.  
  > * Hack hack hack hack hack.  
  > * When done, Loris enters the number of hours worked on the issue.  
  >   
  > Uber has a right to ZSF members’ time. We have no decision or voting power whatsoever with regards to Zig. We have right to offer suggestions, but they have been and will be treated just like from any other third-party bystander. We did not ask for special rights, it’s explicit in the contract, and we don’t want that.

Considering that most companies give zero, nada, shit, to open source projects they heavily use and even base their systems on, no it's not "close to free".

It's closer to the cost of a part-time developer for a full year.

It's a 52k bonus for basically doing what you're already doing.

It's impossible to tell without details of what the support agreement includes. My large company has support contracts with a lot of vendors, and many of them are for way less than $52k

Honestly, I'm not sure, but it is a worthy question. I quickly searched that doc: It is the only "Support Contract" entry. I sincerely hope they get more.

No, actually 52800 US dollars is a lot different than nothing.

Presumably that depends on how support that contract covers, and over what time period. If it covers 1 hour/month over a monthly time period it's a huge amount. If it cover 40 hours/month over a yearly time period then it's a pretty small amount given the usual rates for such services (although still more than some people make for that amount of work).