Is this guy kidding 1160

I agree. But the original post in this thread (neglecting the fact that at one point the breastle of this thread was changed) wanted experience with the Linux tools. almost noone except the originator of this particular subthread ever gave that. The arguments were "You should not change-- you will destroy yourself" or " Why not try it". Cost I agree is probably a minor factor. Certainly if Linux does not do what you need it to do, and something esle does, use the something else. However, IF it does do what you want, then it has advantages-- cost is one, and while the cost may be a trivial fraction of your business expenses, any company which pays no attention to costs is going to go bankrupt. Almost nothing is anything but a trivial expense, but when you add them up, they break you. Another advantage is open source. The company supplying the stuff cannot suddenly decide to abandon you. Your stuff is there in a well defined and accessible form, and you can if necessary get someone else to rescue it for you. You cannot do that with proprietary stuff. It is certainly true that open source stuff sometimes gets dropped, and the developers get tired of developing it. But that does not then inecessarily tie up your work. Thirdly, you tend to have a higher chance of influencing the developement of the product. None of these may matter to you, then go ahead and use what you want. But do not call anyone for whom they do matter stupid. Arguments like "I cannot do what I want (xyz) with this product but can with that" are cogent arguments. Arguments that "My customers will run away if I do not paste the Protools logo on my advertising" are just silly and desperate.