If your life is that of a software professional, you have been definitely exposed to the debate between Open source vs. Proprietary systems. People have opinions ranging from one extreme to the other. For some, this matter is religious. The rest listen to this great debate and depending upon their experience and expertise pick one side or the other or both or neither.
Being a software developer 24/365, I can't avoid contemplating on this subject every now and then. I use lot of open source software (Linux, Vim to name a few), and I am indebted to the developers who created these tools. Without them I would be paying tons for doing what I do now for free.
But every now and then I ponder why is "Open" not the first concern of average Joe. And today I found the answer in a single word - Delegation. That is one quality of our social or economic life. Over hundreds of years we have figured out that we don't have to do produce everything that we need. Over time different segments of society excelled in producing one thing and left the rest of the things for others. They would barter and later sell the stuff they produced and get the stuff that other produced in return. So even though everyone needs to eat and wear clothes, they don't have to know both farming and weaving.
The principle is the same even in today's complex economic system. We have delegated even very small tasks to others in the society. Delegation is so pervasive that it is invisible. And unsurprisingly it is an integral part of Software eco system as well.
We can make our own coffee, but still we get one from Starbucks every morning on our way to office. We do that because we know Starbucks barista can make better coffee than us. And we don't doubt for a moment that he might poison our coffee. We delegate the job of making quality coffee to a trained professional and we trust him/her for doing that job best. Moreover we delegate because we don't want to preoccupy ourselves with such a mundane task as making a coffee.
Software is not much different than Coffee (even if it's not written in Java ;)