The difference is, they have armys of programmers
whereas the open source
apps only have a few at most with the skill to work on apps as elaborate as
say Cubase or similar. I think it would be far better to collaborate on
what evidence do you have of the "armys of programmers"? my impression
is that most audio s/w companies are pretty small, including the "big"
names, when it comes to actual software development staff.
--p