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I am not a fan of open source libraries such as many of the JavaScript libraries available today. But I am a big fan of software such as FireFox.
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Better quality ? Sometimes
Lower cost ? Usually ( Open source is not immune to support costs)
More features ? Cant decide . Sometimes features are prioritised over stability , sometimes not.
More dependable ? Mostly no , few long term support options except for larger open source projects.
More prone to the whims of fashion ? Definitely
Better documentation and training ? Sometimes , some are excellent many are god awful.
Access to the source code ? Yep , and that may be useful for some projects and a complete irrelevancy for others .
More innovative solutions ? Quite often
So despite requests to the contrary 'It Depends' is the only realistic answer .
Some of the best technologies I use are open source , but so are some of the worst .
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Of course there are some good open source software projects I use. But many projects are buggy. Daily new features even if the old ones don't work. Then often there is a time when the project stagnate.
I think there are some real good open source projects but there are a lot of that can't be endorsed.
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No here as well. Open source and proprietary software have their own pros and cons; and because every situation is different you cannot honestly say one is better than the other.
On the one hand, you can say that open source lets you make your changes. However, how many people really have the time for that? That's not to mention that the majority of users won't have the skill to change it. On the other hand, open source tends to get updated on the whim of its creator.
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Ingo wrote: But many projects are buggy. Daily new features even if the old ones don't work. Then often there is a time when the project stagnate.
Can't all of this be said for closed source software?
John
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That's the reason I really don't like, use and support Open Source!
The idea behind seems to be a nice one, but sometimes there is too much confusion due to amount of the constantly changes
and the lack of circulation of necessary information... 
modified 18-Aug-14 4:01am.
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Precisely. In my view, any project must have a leader. Open source is a bit like a very undisciplined commitee, with everyone trying to put their favourite point across at the same time. There are some very good, nay excellent, open source projects out there. ( I'm thinking GIMP. Excellent! Open/Libre Office? Not so much. ) but there is an awful lot of dross as well.
For commercial use, support must be rated higher than cost. The days when manufacturers could get away with saying "The person who wrote that software has left the company." have long gone.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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It's better a software written by a professional or an hobbyist ?
They have different approach and different target.
We have to take in account horizontal ( ie office ) and vertical market (ie programming of job in lab analysis machine), the need for SLA. Another aspect is the target use: private or commercial.
You can tell many companies uses open source and give support, even 2 hours SLA, but part of code and specific interfaces are not available in source form.. In this case costs are the same as 'closed'
I known the risk is to tell every time: it depends.. not heaven not hell.. for both
In my code ( with escrow for sources ) many parts are open source ( ie boost ), but as long as I'm in charge for system availability they have to use my closed builds.
... only my opinion...
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There are risks in non-open source projects too.
Last week my Windows just crashed (Windows 8.1 Pro) and I was left with just a blue screen saying NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM which indicated there was something wrong in the File System, and you know what, I had to loose everything I have had unsaved in the C:/ folder.
All of my development projects!  darn it, but Windows still managed to load it from beginning somehow.
Favourite line: Throw me to them wolves and close the gate up. I am afraid of what will happen to them wolves - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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There are two camps, those who embrace change and those who avoid it.
For the first camp, these are people who are actively generating or using open source bits in their products and thrive on fast cycle times.
For the second camp, these are people who don't like to release often for technical or operational reasons and prefer to just sell more and have others (usually vendors) do the work for them.
Anyone who has been developing and supporting products in the wild for long enough knows that you "own" and are "responsible for" all the stack including the hardware your software product runs on since ultimately your customers call/scream at you with the problems, so being able to find and fix problems on your own is what it comes down to (you may not be able to fix the open source stuff but you can work around it).
So having the source helps a lot.
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Your point about having access to source code when your project depends on it is a good one. But access to source code isn't restricted to open source projects. Some of the better proprietary libraries I reference have the option to pay for access to the source.
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Why not?
Because the way I want to vote is "it depends".
There is some very good open source software out there, but...there is a lot of rubbish too, and you can't tell how good it is because it is written by such a variety of people.
Two examples:
1) Open Office V MS Office.
I hate Office: I love Excel, bye Word is a bloated, poorly designed heap of junk. So I installed Open Office. And six months later I'm paying money to MS for Office. Because it works. Even Word (bloat, Ribbon, poor design and all) works. If a feature is there, it does what it should. I found so many things I couldn't do (or which didn't work correctly) that the free, Open version just wasted more of my time than it saved of my money.
2) Mono V .NET
I'm sure it's better now, but when I started with C# I was trying to produce a website with VS, on windows and run it on a Mono equipped web server. (Because it was cheap. Very cheap. Free.) And time after time, something that worked in development failed on the production kit - because the people writing the Open version wrote the bit they were using and didn't write or didn't test the bit they weren't.
Being honest: I use PaintShop Pro not Gimp, Office not Open Office, Windows not Linux. And you do too - because they work out of the box. I like Open software, but I won't use it for anything really important!
You looking for sympathy?
You'll find it in the dictionary, between sympathomimetic and sympatric
(Page 1788, if it helps)
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No, I tried the original Open Office[^] from which the Apache variant was derived (among others)
It's entirely possible that that version is good - but that's part of the problem with OS software: you don't know if a variant is any good, and anyone can create a variant!
You looking for sympathy?
You'll find it in the dictionary, between sympathomimetic and sympatric
(Page 1788, if it helps)
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Agree that original version was not good.
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Really? Every accountant tried to beat me after I have installed it for them.
Not so compatible with Excel. First, the Apache edition mangles the date formats on open. May not brother you, if you use the American date format. It kills the Hungarian/ANSI one. It is slow to start. Many use Excel to format printed tables, it rarelly hits the mark after conversion. I assume it continuously converts between inches and centimeters. Range selection usually moves the range instead of select part of it if I try to modify the range.
CSV conversion is better, and I like the formula editor more than the Excel one (usually less selection movement), and the pro list ends here for me.
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Fortunately I'm not an accountant so no such troubles for me 
For me, that suite is good. I have used both word & excel from that suite for many works & it's fine. I didn't face such issues as didn't involve into things which you have mentioned. While saving I use .doc & .xls format instead of default format. It supports .docx & .xlsx formats too which old MS office versions don't.
Possibly you could solve these issues by using their forums.
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Unfortunately, their forums in Hungarian run by university students, they are dead in the Summer.
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OG, what's your experience/opinion about open source toolkits (vs. products)? IOW, would you consider (or do you use) JSON .NET, SQLite, PDF Sharp, etc?
/ravi
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Some of it is worth using - that'e the whole problem with OS software: some of it is good but you can spend far, far too much time finding out which is which! 
SQLite is good (and I have started looking at it, since it is the default standard for Android storage).
You looking for sympathy?
You'll find it in the dictionary, between sympathomimetic and sympatric
(Page 1788, if it helps)
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Seems to me this poll is a bit biased... I had to look pretty hard for the No option.
I've seen Open Source software that stinks and I've seen proprietary software that stinks.
Ultimately both are made by developers and developers make mistakes.
It's an OO world.
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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Professionally the company wants a target if the tool foobars so vendor tools are preferred.
Personally, I have never even considered the difference, use the first one you find that does the job adequately. I don't have the time nor inclination to text/compare tool sets.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Apart of being cheaper and being able to mod it by ourselves, it's typically better to get something you've paid for.
PS: oh, and I won't let this opportunity to pass without saying that CListCtrl has never been open source as bacon itself and both are perfectly nice products. 
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Joan Murt wrote: CListCtrl has never been open source as bacon itself and both are perfectly nice products.
Indeed, and so is Liquid Nitrogen!
Whether I think I can, or think I can't, I am always bloody right!
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