Both Open Source and the current M$ model can co-exist, letting the consumer decide. The "freedom" for Open Source promoters to distrubute their work as they see fit is great, and the "freedom" of companies to choose the proprietary software model has it's merits too. Remember, freedom is all about choice, and programmers get to choose what they work on, and what is done with their work product.
There's also the fact that some software is better off left in a black box... security stuff. If hackers / virus writers were to have access to the source code of popular AV programs, SW firewalls... then they could more effectively launch attacks (something we should all agree is not a good thing).
If your goal is to have the best software available to the world, then Open Source is probably the better model. If the goal is the best economic prosperity for the software industry, then the proprietary software model is likely more effective. Since different people have different priorities, it's more than likely that one model will never satisfy everyone.
Both Open Source and the current M$ model can co-exist, letting the consumer decide. The "freedom" for Open Source promoters to distrubute their work as they see fit is great, and the "freedom" of companies to choose the proprietary software model has it's merits too. Remember, freedom is all about choice, and programmers get to choose what they work on, and what is done with their work product.
There's also the fact that some software is better off left in a black box... security stuff. If hackers / virus writers were to have access to the source code of popular AV programs, SW firewalls... then they could more effectively launch attacks (something we should all agree is not a good thing).
If your goal is to have the best software available to the world, then Open Source is probably the better model. If the goal is the best economic prosperity for the software industry, then the proprietary software model is likely more effective. Since different people have different priorities, it's more than likely that one model will never satisfy everyone.