What people didn't realize is that it takes quite a bit of engineering horsepower to sift through the mountain of code to extract the pieces that you need and fill in the holes to create a product. That appeals to developers who don't want to take those responsibilities. We believe there's a large number of developers who fall into that category. Hundreds of third-party developers have built successful applications for Windows without ever seeing a single line of its source. You just need to know how it supports your application.
Open source teaches by example how to do things.
He added that open source permits the developer to work around bugs in code that they don't own. Otherwise, the RTOS is a black box. If developers can get at the source, they have control of their life, can fix the problem and move on. But according to Wind River's Fogelin, making changes to RTOS source code can lead OEMs down a slippery slope. It's like a deal with the devil.