Vendors hindering open-source hardware development

Taking proprietary approach too far is limiting the industry, says Neil McAllister.

It is the sad facts of life that companies will not open up there code, to allow there products to be used in greater ways. The problem is that companies want to have there products closed "to protect there products" especially with software, so that people do not find bugs that can be exploited. But with that ideology, they can still find them, even though the source is closed. Both open source and closed code have there advantages, and disadvantages, though I prefer open source, companies are not going to open everything up because of the fear that there code could be copied, or reused. It may also be a factor that companies do not want to be libel to replacing hardware, if the equipment is loaded with something different, because of the fact that it could ruin it. Risk/Reward is why many people hack Linksys routers with linux, so they can get more with there router, from the fact that they are technically more apt, as well as more comfortable than the normal consumer.

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