Depending on open source software is a sounder choice than depending on
proprietary one because you have the source and can do with it as you please.
In the ecology of the open source world, no node is indispensible. Developers
can drop out, and distributors can fail, without it having a global effect
on the ecology as a whole.
We can observe that some firms employ open-source developers
(open R&D) for the sake of increasing the total number of units shipeed,
and by proportion their share of it.