James McGovern correctly notes that many companies are happy to use free software (the open source aspect is secondary, IMHO), and not worry that much about support issues:

Too much of the discussion around open source has been centered around software vendors and paid support models. The assumption is that enterprises won't go it alone in terms of using software without someone providing a holding hand. The funny thing is that many enterprises are doing just that. Ask yourself how many enterprises use Eclipse? Then ask yourself how many enterprises pay for support for Eclipse? Once an enterprise starts getting a taste of what it means to support themselves then the economic model changes significantly towards something more positive. The real question if folks can understand positive may not come from the perspective of a software vendor but it can benefit large enterprises in an economically sound way.

What he's not pointing out is that Eclipse is backed by a large vendor (IBM), which is a large part of the reason why people are comfortable about it. It's easy to be happy with free software that is being continually improved; the harder question is what companies would do if IBM decided that Eclipse wasn't worth whatever it is they spend on it. Right now, Eclipse is a loss leader for IBM's paid software; as with any loss leader, if IBM decides that it's not pulling people over to the paid side, the seeming altruism will come to an end.

At the end of the day, stuff has to be paid for - development machines, bandwidth, and - more than anything else - people. There's only so much forward progress that happens without a paid staff of developers.

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