Hi there !
I followed this thread from the beginning, and i was so stunned about the things that have been written that i was unable to contribute a word by myself ... until now :)
I am working for Multimedia companies myself: Sony, EPSON, Canon, Agfa and so on and so on, so i work for the kind of companies that NEVER would consider something like "open source" or "User programmable Modules" or whatever.
So those are the companies that you would consider "evil".
They are not.
They are in many ways ignorant, stupid and "overstructured" but the most important thing:
THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL !
I agree 100% if somebody tells me:
They could be more successful IF they would allow their customers to influence there products or to even customize little portions of code/usage !
But they act like they act, because they still rely on their OLD behaviours ...

And now compare this with empeg !
REFRESHING !
I think it is impudent to ask empeg for even more -> open source.
IF they decide so : fine, i'll be happy as can be, but even the way that it is right now is REALLY outstanding and almost seems futuristic and exotic to me ...
And i HOPE that this turns out to be successful too, because then the global players maybe realize what customer-feedback/support can mean.
Just do the test, compare empeg with ALL other companies that you bought Hardware from ( computer & multimedia ) ( i mean something you REALLY bought, not some kond of magic project that you heard of :)...
They are the best, most competent, nicest and friendliest, i bet so ...

So: Don't take their time & mind, trying to force to think like you, let them be successful the way they are now, and let them show it to the rest of the industry, THEN maybe in their next project we can talk about Open Source.

Don't get me wrong: It was okay to ask them about Open Source, and to ask them 3 more times, but this thread gets evil ...
Asking is something else then trying to force them ...
It wastes their time ...

Nils

P.S. I do not want to please empeg with this post, i simply think: They ARE doing an outstanding job, and even if their product maybe just is 6 month ahead, they are YEARS ahead with the way they are treating customers, so we should'nt push them too far, it is not fair and we should respect their decisions ( at least after nagging them 10 times :) .