I don't have the skills to audit code myself, but I like things that run locally rather than backing up on somebody else's computer in a honeypot somewhere.
Business solutions --- No
A few examples --- US payroll. There is no competent open source solution that I am aware of.
Bill payment/money transfer --- Any mistake can be time consuming and costly to correct.
A spreadsheet is not the only tool most businesses need. There is lots of business software and services where open source is unavailable or does not present a practical, trustworthy solution IMO. A common thread that seems to run through a lot of these cases is liability.
I got burned by WikidPad, an open source personal wiki, which I've been using for a decade or more. The 2012 windows installer still works great, but the source code on Linux is effectively worthless because of breaking changes in the WxPython library[1] it depends on. Initially it seems fine, but only later do you realize that none of the dialog boxes actually work, effectively killing its utility.
It was that instance of failure that is the primary reason I still run Windows instead of Linux. I had moved over and all seemed good for a week, until I couldn't use WikidPad.
I tried to fix WikidPad myself, or find a fork that worked, but it was too far away from my skillset. There were 43 dialog boxes to fix.
Eventually I gave up and reverted to Windows. Perhaps I should fork it again, and give it another try, before Windows 12 hits.
However, that does look like a way to fix the problem with other projects.
- I have a visibility in to code, issues, features, development.
- I can eventually fork the project or use someone's fork if the main project becomes obsolete. I can also keep using the obsolete version forever. For SASS software, I can't rely on it forever.
- There is an option I eventually contribute.
- There is a greater chance of having a community with lots of blog posts, docs & Questions & answers online.
- No mandatory recurring payments.
If it's for something personal, then sure. It allows me to edit the code to fix small bugs or otherwise tweak it to my own needs.
If it's for something that actually handles my money in any way, then only if I can audit the code myself and the libraries it uses. I err on the side of over due-diligence for sure, and I'm fairly confident in my abilities in auditing code in a few languages that luckily are also commonly used enough that they are ubiquitous - Python, JS, Go, Solidity, etc. If your open source project is written in Brainfuck, I mean, props, but I'm not going to use that for anything production worthy.
For personal use, yes, as I do have a poke around in the source code as well its immediate project artefacts and community (if exists) to get an idea of project health and trustworthiness.
For work, not necessarily. I'd want to go for the most convenient option possible, that comes close to requirements and has a sufficient popularity. In some cases that might be an open source project, but even then it might be paid for by virtue of being managed by AWS, for example.
The thinking there is that if the project or company behind it fail, at least I can continue to use the tech while making a plan to maintain it or migrate away.
It's unclear if that's a sound reason or just an intuitive take.
Because two things - first, I like when people are bold enough to show code, second, because closed source does not guarantee from mistakes, in many cases definitely otherwise.
In the area of security, if the software is closed source, I don’t use it. The code has to be open to inspection.
For library usage, yes.
When I want the code, yes.
For everything else, no, never impact my decision.