Development is currently quite active. Everybody’s risk analysis is different, but my assessment is that :
- open source means that we can contribute the fixes and improvements we need
- not being dependant on a commercial product protects us from events outside our control : what if the company goes under and does not release their code ? What about licensing / pricing changes ?
- it follows that in the worse case scenario where the project is completely abandoned, we have the code base and opportunity of maintaining it
- others are in the same position, which strengthens the incentive to collaborate on maintenance
That is not to say I’d systematically reject commercial products in favour of FOSS, just that both have different risk profiles that may or may not fit a given situation :)
- open source means that we can contribute the fixes and improvements we need - not being dependant on a commercial product protects us from events outside our control : what if the company goes under and does not release their code ? What about licensing / pricing changes ? - it follows that in the worse case scenario where the project is completely abandoned, we have the code base and opportunity of maintaining it - others are in the same position, which strengthens the incentive to collaborate on maintenance
That is not to say I’d systematically reject commercial products in favour of FOSS, just that both have different risk profiles that may or may not fit a given situation :)