I, for one, have not contributed as much to the list and to the demos as I should. Unfortunately, keeping our existing systems running has been a challenge. Even though it doesn't look like much, the political climate here is starting to shift in favor of alternate solutions.
Every software failure is more ammunition to support an open-source solution.
The problem is that failure is not going to be an option for open-solution solutions. In many cases, the only way to gain acceptance of OSS is as a solution to a problem. This type of solution MUST be very short-term and work with very little effort. A long-term investment of time and resources to prove an OSS solution is not possible here. It will have to work and work well, right out of the box.