Semi-related idea (Score 1)

Someone should compare government types to development types. I was thinking closed-source compared with a monarchy (a small group of royals with total control and a few advisors), open source with a democracy--the people have the control.

Except with open source, you can always spin off your own distro with your buddies if the ones currently around don't work for you, and it's a lot harder to move to another nation if your homeland's government (democracy or not) doesn't work for you.

So if democracies are a good idea for governments (which could be also argued are like operating systems, for example), open source is a good idea for software with the extra benefit of being able to find another distro or fix yourself up one if the current one is unsatisfactory. Just use a little common sense when choosing a specific program. Malware and the like are the product of a few people with interests against the whole; a whole bunch of people, on the other hand, aren't going to purposely give themselves problems.