Actually, the trend is that most freeware is more likely to offer spotty support, and have quality issues. This is not to say all freeware is like this, but most.
Freeware is not open source. Two very different paradigms of development and distribution.
I've been developing on several platforms for 34 years and have kept my skills very fresh throughout that time, so I've seen it all and then some. You can cherry pick to show how some freeware does offer great quality and support, but that does not disprove the fact that most of it is cr@p.
Cherry picking? Is there any number of projects that I could provide that would illustrate my point?
Doesn't disprove the fact that most of it is bad? That's quite the generalization grounded in absolutely no facts. Do you really believe that most of the open source software is terrible? Really?
When you require core solutions that support an enterprise, you're almost always better off going the paid for route, and with few exceptions.
That must be why 94% of the world's fastest supercomputers use free software based solutions (
source), why 8 of the top 10 most reliable web servers on the planet run Linux or FreeBSD (
source), why 69.13% of the web runs on open source server software (
source) and why more than 70% of the mobile smartphones in the world run open source operating systems (
source). Let's also not forget that all of the top 10 programming languages are open source or have available standards.
If the paid for route is clearly the better choice, how do you account for the overwhelming dominance of open source platforms in critical and commercial products?
You'll not understand this unless you deliver core solutions to enterprises that hold you legally bound should things go bad.
You assume I don't?
So cherry pick away, but know that you will pick the exceptions and not the rule
How many examples would you like? I'd be more than happy to provide as many as you'd like. As I said earlier, is there any magical number I could get to that would make clear how wrong your assertions are?