[avrdude-dev] How good is AVRDude ?

[Janaka Subhawickrama]

Sorry this is not a technical question as such !

My Background :
I am an Embedded Software Engineer with 8 Years embedded experience in a verity 
of chips, living in Australia.

Background to the question:
I was having a discussion with a Embedded Software Engineer with about 40 Years 
experience (Yeh that's right, has been with it since the valve days) when he 
said the following. "AVRDude [and open source embedded tools] is only good for 
enthusiastic amateurs.  Professionals don't use it for work!".  

Well I think AVRDude and open source embedded tools are a great tool, although 
I haven't use it for work - yet!.
His reasons are as follows
- There is no formal testing done on AVRDude
- No professionals use it for work purposes
- Professional developers don't develop it
- There is no software architects overseeing the architecture of AVRDude
- There is ad-hoc planning

Hence unreliable.

Answers looking for :
Well what I am looking for is some facts to knock those points down.
Please help!

Cheers
  Janaka