I feel like you just used his submission to take the opportunity to write out a personal diatribe. He specifically said he did not want to be an extremist but

I feel like you just used his submission to take the opportunity to write out a personal diatribe. He specifically said he did not want to be an extremist but rather "how can I live so that the benefits of open-source are maximized while the detriments of closed-source are minimized?" In the end, you didn't offer anything useful that addresses his question. To answer the OP's question: use open source products whenever convenient, and almost as importantly, assist with the development of OSS whenever possible, be it code, documentation, or helping newbies.