They're open to the source of money

It's patently ridiculous, not to be, says Silicon Valley;

"Patents are so incompatible with the open source software philosophy," said Daniel Nazer, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

That's [Elon] Musk's mantra. The Tesla CEO didn't decide to give away his company's technology because he is a nice guy. Instead, Musk realized that electric cars won't gain mass acceptance if he is the only one making them.

....Nazer said Musk's move made perfect business sense.

Because it's a way of overcoming any barrier to entry that exists because of network effects. Something that entrepreneurs are very good at doing (overcoming barriers), contrary to the theories of Paul David, Brian Arthur and Paul Krugman. 

"Some people see the decision as a radical move," Nazer said. "But when you think about it, Musk is saying that he'd rather control 20 percent of a large electric car market instead of 90 percent of a small market."

The ideology is appealing to cash-strapped startups that need to control costs.

"Open source is becoming a thing that startups do," said Ryan Singer, co-founder of bitcoin security firm CryptoCorp. "They will never pay licensing fees because they can't afford it."

The incentive's the thing....