Several people have already side-swiped this issue, but let me say it straight out: the main advantage of OSS is that, if you really need to, you can dive in an

Several people have already side-swiped this issue, but let me say it straight out: the main advantage of OSS is that, if you really need to, you can dive in and fix bugs or add your favorite features ("scratch your itch"). I don't think this happens as often as pure OSS advocates claim, but it's there. Think of OSS as having the ultimate guarantee: You can fix anything, if you really need to. Otherwise, you're just working with a black box whose ultimate behavior (bugs or features--really the same) is beyond your control and even understanding. (Believe me, I've spent decades working with various black boxes (OS and application APIs), and it ain't all that fun spending a good chunk of your life second-guessing the API vendor and working around their bugs.)