Peer review and public acessibility makes Open Source superior

In other words - returning to my original analogy between software and civil engineering - publishing the design of a bridge doesn't eliminate its value. It enhances its value: we know it will be safe not because the architect drew a nice picture but because engineers look at each others' work, criticise it, perhaps even lodge objections to the work before it's approved.

Are all the "eyes" of equal value? Of course not. Not in software, not in civil engineering. It's the "best" eyes that matter.

Nor does publication eliminate the expertise needed to build the next bridge.

It makes the next bridge safer, more efficient, and better than the last - and its publication, not secrecy, which encourages civil engineering to build projects which are best suited to circumstances.
If Lend Lease (for example) had a "black box" bridge, its economic interest would be best served by building that bridge thousands of times, selling them, and forbidding either examination or modification.

If it was required to create an original design for every component of every project, it would try and build that "black box" bridge.

It's the combination of shared techniques, publicly-available components, publication and peer review which gives us a world in which we can efficiently design projects suited to their purpose.

If a piece of software is trivial - so trivial that anybody can buy it, install it and use it without expertise - then why should it be expensive?

If software is not trivial, then publishing its designs won't eliminate the demand for expertise.

Theft of Designs

Tony argues that Open Source software encourages inadequate software developers to steal the work of their betters.

There are two flaws in this argument. The first is philosophical: "theft" of software isn't a concept which applies to Open Source software. You can't steal something when I have given you permission to use it.

However, a more profound argument is not philosophical, but practical: theft is easily discovered when the designs are public.

The application of copyright in the GPL is closely akin to how civil engineers tell me they apply copyright. Its role is not to protect future revenues from a design but to protect the public from inferior work and protect the author from "passing off".