By leveraging open source development for the technology that we share with many others, good guys and bad guys, we can focus on the parts that are special. Our bang for the buck, and rate of increase in system capability, has increased -dramatically- thanks to open source.
To me, it's seldom a question of whether to open source, but of when to open source. One must maintain a proprietary and national advantage in leading edge technology, while not wasting the time of developers or customers reinventing the wheel for technology that is widely available.
Just as processors have gone from the proprietary advantage of IBM and the Seven Dwarfs (Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and UNIVAC) to being commodity chips from Intel and AMD, similarly system software, architectures and other hardware advance in wave after wave. Anyone caught trying to hold onto the last wave as if it were still a trade secret or a proprietary advantage gets washed aside, in the tsunami of the next wave.
Thanks for your reply, but I just don't follow the reasoning of sharing with the bad guys. It seems to assume, they're not really "bad guys", but more like just the other football team from another city who share your league. I can understand sharing some if not many things with your allies. But with everyone?