[lp4vn]

>He listened politely, but wasn't convinced.

He listened, but he probably doesn't care.

He uses whatever software helps him gets his job done and that's it. Software developers and enthusiats in general usually care about free software, other people not so much.

And also we can't pretend that free sotware projects like octave are not playing catch up with its commercial counterparts, it's not like hundreds of paid developers and billions of dollars getting thrown at the development of new features don't make any difference.