[maskedSlacker]

Valuable for who? Open source (at the margin) is more valuable for everyone--except the inventor, for whom it is not as valuable. So the inventor keeps the design proprietary, and keeps more money for themselves.

But, as is often the case, decisions that are optimal at the margin can often lead to suboptimal outcomes in aggregate.

I'm not convinced that's the case in IC fabrication, but its not impossible.