[ristic]

If you follow the "Ready-to-Run Program" prompts on the official download page[1] as an anonymous or unsubscribed user, you will reach a page that explains their method/philosophy.

I'm sure Paul would be happy to speak to you on IRC (#ardour on Freenode) about successes/failures but of course I can't say this for sure.

Also, I am awaiting a stream of Paul's upcoming talk (as I can't get to France for LAC2017[2]) "20 years of Open Source Audio: Success, Failure and The In-Between"[3]. I hope part of the talk will address the financial aspects that are of interest to you.

[1] https://community.ardour.org/download [2] http://musinf.univ-st-etienne.fr/lac2017GB.html [3] http://musinf.univ-st-etienne.fr/lac2017/lacProgramGB.html