[pbronez]

> that they just don't trust in-house expertise over basically any vendors.

Another way to look at this: they recognize that they aren't software firms. If you bring in OSS, you have to manage it like a product. You have to recruit, train and manage competent developers. You have to balance competing priorities from "customers" across the firm. That's hard for firms that focus on software, and often impossible for big enterprises.

There's also a cost distribution problem. If you buy commercial software, probably other people are buying it to. Thus you share the development and maintenance costs. You can (hopefully) competent software management too.

I think "open core" is probably best balance here. Yes, we need better funding/pricing models here.