Open Source, Closed Source and the Not So Open etc Source

The ones who know the benefits of open source, do know and adore it. The ones who are the apologists of closed source, do what they know. So it is not about this eternal Linux-Mac-PC war. The problem is, that even if a project is defined as open source or similar (GPL, LGPL and a myriad of other varieties) the benefits for a would-be adopter are strikingly different. It is different for the developers, for the managers/decision makers and to the overall interested community. So, what makes the differenece (in order of my perceived importance): a) main platform - it is considerably more problematic to have something written in Java, Phyton versus PHP, Perl or Visual Basic (yes the old one) as the development communities and the number of affordable but still skilled developers differs hugely. It is not that one is better than the other, but about the adoptability, affordability and future proofness of the platform; b) the quality of the code already there and the amount of native documentation to maintain/develop the solution further. Obvious, but too often the only thing available of a fancy app is the source and maybe the executables; c) presence and size of the development community. Obvious again, so lets do not discuss it; d) the use of commercial components and developer tools. Researching the developer documentation of some supposedly FOSS apps reveals that in order to do full fledged development you need some commercial component, like say in case of OpenWorkbench of many of the Qt based apps (correct me if I am wrong). Of course, you may consider to pay a candy bar price for a three course meal. What a deal! e) existance of commercial support. I would put it as the last one here as say, support of PostgreSQL is a nice thing but Oracle buying InnoDB creates mixed feelings. So it is not clear where it leads to, but definitely it is beneficial. All too clear to put in a bulleted list, but overall the success is also determined by the maturity, stability and feature set of the would be app, either at launch on at the current point of time. So, the conclusion is: open source may cost you something and probably will and the key benefits may come from other sources. The problem is, does the comparative value of the costs and benefits leave you with a net red or black.