18 months ago, I was almost completely ignorant of the open source movement.

Having worked in a strict IT environment where software was laughed at unless it cost a small country's GNP, I was using big name RDBMS software on big name UNIX OS's with M$ development tools, running on PC's with M$ OS's.
Then we started using the GNU c++ compilers. There was shock all round when they worked, and worked well.

Since that time I've been on a voyage of discovery which has changed how I go about my job. I now use Linux/Perl/Apache/MySQL and GNU compilers.

The support I get from the community just makes me wonder why I was hanging on phone support queuing systems for what seemed like years, and then when the problem was a real bug, had to wait another lifetime for a fix.

I'm about to start a new job designing the backends for websites. I'll be working with well supported tools where help is always available (wait til I start posting all my mod-perl questions :-) ), and where I'll be more productive than I've ever been before.

I'd like your views on how much open source tools have changed your productivity and your enjoyment of your job. (I know I find getting help from the Monks far more fun that listening to 'Please Release Me' while waiting for support on an ODBC driver bug.)