Re: Cost is the smaller concern
If you deploy a modified distro, you will be just in the hands of the "consultants" which all ask you more and more money to maintain it. And after a while, it will become just another lock-in, because it will become difficult to hire a different company to maintain it. Also, good luck in porting all the changes to a newer version, especially when this kind of small companies lack the proper resources (after all, they've been five years in the making!) and there's not a small risk to be stuck in an older, outdated version.
Open source won't save the world. For many, it's just a different way to make money, trying to deceive you into believing they're some sort of white knight fighting for Good.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
