This thread is most interesting to me. The arguments of the pros and cons of commercial vs. opensource (sometimes in the context of commercial vs. freeware) always has the "when you pay for it, you get higher quality and/or more reliable support".

But, for me, the argument that you get better support when you pay for it seems not sufficiently well backed up in my real-world experiences.

For example, I actually dread ever having to call "customer service" or the "help desk" for any commercial product.

I can't remember when, for any commercial product, I could successfully (1) get through to the help in a reasonable time and (2) actually get someone who could answer my question (no matter how simple the question or answer) without having to spend interminable time trying to get them to (a) understand my language (english) and (b) getting them to be interested in actually helping me find an answer.

My experience is that the only real help comes from the generous help that folks like the Monks offer...and it's free.

You gurus providing the help are always interested and often passionate about helping, the level of knowledge and expertise seems to almost always far exceed the pay-for-help "gurus", and so many seem to truly enjoy writing amplifying documentation, faqs, and tutorials that are incredible, helpful, and extensive.

I just don't see the real-world confirmation that "you get better help (or products) when you pay for it." I can't see that Perl, Python, MySQL, Subversion and other such "freeware" products are in any way subsuperior to any of their commercial counterparts.

That's just my experience and perspective.