Intellectual Property
For open source to succeed in any environment one specific obstacle must be addressed. This is the reluctance of some to accept a lack of individually owned intellectual property rights, because with open source there is not one single owner of the design and product being created. For example if we open source a design then anyone can produce the product based on that design (in actuality it depends on the specific license that the authors used for the design, but for discussions sake lets say a pure open source license). If no one owns the rights to the design then there are also implications of a lack of accountability and this idea presents a struggle for many who are used to proprietary products that have warranties and legally accountable entities. The only way that open source can overcome these hurdles is by convincing those people that the advantages of the open design can exceed the risks of a lack of accountability. In reality if there is a problem then it is easier to diagnose with open source and therefore accountability should not be as important when the users have the ability to find, fix, or suggest solutions to problems. The views of users have to change in order for them to accept the open source model.
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