Originally Posted by
sean
Neither I nor anyone else made a statement regarding the ability to CHANGE the source code of the central product. Where did you get that idea, anyway? Open source software is practically never editable by "just anyone". There's always a central governing body that determines what is accepted in to the main branch. You can edit the code for yourself however you want, but that is no reflection on how mature the central project is.
edit: I would further argue that anyone who is bad enough at project management to let an open-source project become disorganized, would have the same difficulty with paid employees and corporate security, and with no external criticism.
edit2: Yes they are. IMO what you're paying for is support in that case, as I'm yet to see a closed-source UNIX that does as well as Linux 2.6.* in benchmarks or popularity (and perhaps security, too - but I have no evidence, just a hunch).