Seems to me that open source philosophy is just another contender in the free market.
A lot more than that. When people aren't doing it for the money, necessarily (or maybe just for the fame), as in academia, 'open source' is how things are done. People around the world contribute to the science. It's the nerdly way.
Micro$oft has benefitted greatly from such worldwide open academic research. It's a tasteless, clueless, socially irresponsible mega-corporation, at this point. There would be no 'medical ethicist' employed there to raise the hand and wag the finger and say - hold on a minute. No, instead, this childish behemoth would attempt to claim for itself, and its own distribution, virtually everything published now, and importantly in the past. They would, eventually, attempt to destroy libraries, as libraries themselves out of misguided PC have attempted to do themselves. They would outlaw publishing thousand year old documents as proprietary 'intellectual property' of Micro$oft. The brave new world of Communist tyranny is not found in 'open source', but in megalithic corporations run by egomaniacs who admit no social responsibilty and no check on their unquenchable lust for power.
If you think that's overstated, if you think that slippery slope simply doesn't even exist - try to look ahead, and think again. I think it's a truth seemingly much less credible than fiction. That's how truth is. But consider that artwork hundreds and hundreds of years old is suppposedly considered the 'intellectual property', today, of that museum which claims ownership, as I understand the law. How much further behind can all other published materials down through history be if Micro$oft gets its 'band of lawyers' on the chase? If they don't like the Magna Carta, people will never hear it mentioned again. A particular version of the Bible? Micro$oft no like? Every known copy burned and that version locked away from people forever afterward, save for the brave subversive souls who secret away their copies and meet with others in the underground to study the text. Hopefully, as Micro$oft tries to play Big Brother, I won't be around to see it. Or hopefully, wiser heads will prevail against them. Maybe the free marketplace will have the last laugh on this for-rofit corporation. To say the least, they scare me. I'm beginning to wish there were no Micro$oft corporation.