"This is where I think the Redhat/Cygwin model could work. People who want support can pay for a neatly packaged piece of software that has a phone number that they can call and get someone to ask questions. As the market for media art and the like grows, I think this will only become more and more feasible.
.hc"
The thing is that is *exactly* the space that C74 occupy. PD's big differentiator is that its less developed as a "product" (in the proper comercial sense of the word) and more open - a work in progress guided by some extremely talented people but open to a strong community.
I've looked at Max/MSP and I've even got a pirate copy but I don't use it because PD suits my needs much more. While I like the slick interface in Max/MSP I much prefer to be able to role up my seleves and change things to work the way I want in Pd - and to be able to come here and ask questions.
I personally feel that making a living in the PD space would be very difficult. (if you wonder what my experience for saying this is you can check my cv out at my new software site http://www.pagefall.com). Derek seems to have made inroads into a service based offering around PD and that is one possible road. The other of course is to use PD as a prototyping tool and generate a new soft synth or processor or something. However this is also a very crowded market place and there are a lot of "hobbyist" players who haven't got to earn an actual living from their work despite some very high quality offerings.
I'm not trying to be negative here - if you want to make a living from something then you need to be realistic about what is viable and what is not.
cheers
mark