> Unfortunately, I've noticed that non-SW engineers frequently turn their noses up at open-source solutions, and really the entire concept of open-source softwa

> Unfortunately, I've noticed that non-SW engineers frequently turn their noses up at open-source solutions, and really the entire concept of open-source software, and seem to prefer proprietary solutions, the more expensive the better. Well if you're dealing with projects worth 7 figures (or more), it absolutely makes sense to go for a commercial project with SLAs on support. Last thing you want is to hit some showstopper bug, holding up people who earn 4-digit daily compensation, and been told to "figure stuff out yourself". If you as the author of a FOSS project that isn't a household name already for historical reasons (like, say, OpenSSL or cURL) and you want it being used by anyone else than hobbyists and universities, you won't get around establishing some sort of corporate infrastructure to sell support contracts.