[kabouseng]

Thats easy to just say, but how wil you financially protect the company developing the software / hardware, if their competitors can just copy the work. Or stated the other way round, how will you keep companies encentivised to develop new software / hardware?

[fpgaminer]

Actually quite the opposite. If legislation were passed that required an entire industry to open source their firmware (automotive, voting machines, medical, etc), it would provide better IP protection. Did company A copy company B's code? Well it's open source ... go look! As opposed to being able to hide things in binaries.

But yes, this only applies if the competition must also open their kimonos. That seems practical for industries where regulation is required or provides reasonable benefits to society (automotive, voting machines, medical, etc).

[davidw]

You are making the mistake of equating 'visible source code' with 'Open Source', which has a fairly precise meaning, which explicitly allows copying:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

Making the source code visible would probably be sensible in this case though, so I think the idea is a good one even if you need to be careful with the terminology.

[fpgaminer]

Sorry, I forgot to put the necessary disclaimer in my post stating my intended meaning of open source. You're right, I used it in the 'visible' sense of the word, not 'libre'.