I am also for open source, however here are some arguments for closed source:
What are the bad effects to society for software transparency?
One is companies that are less willing to write code or go to market because their code IP wouldn't be competitive given existing players. Smaller new competitors' code would be quickly copied by larger existing players with their larger teams into larger projects that are already used by everyone.
Then there is the case of artistic one-off projects.
Imagine a $50 video game releasing its source code immediately or as it is being made. There would be another company that just copies the code or the textures and distributes quickly before the last level is done.
at least the door for extra benefits is open, whereas for closed software the door is shut
This is true, but some doors that you don't want to be open are also shut. It takes a lot of effort to reverse engineer something. I bet all the openssl bugs would be harder to find if it wasn't open source. Especially, if binaries weren't available either - something like only an API layer existing. Maybe heartbleed wouldn't have been found until openssl was replaced by something else.
Finally, something like GNU parallel is very commonly used. On the other hand, some random utility that is on Github and isn't very popular probably isn't looked at by nearly as many people. Out of 100 people who use some software, about 1% looks at source code. So then if you have 1000 people use your tool, only 10 people look at the tool's source code and 1 of them is a malicious actor looking for exploits. I have personally found several bugs in open source software that could have been security exploits, but haven't reported them because I was lazy at the time.
Having said all this, most non-application-specific software could be open source and it would probably help it more than hurt it.
To me these are arguments for making closed source illegal, especially the second. Among many benefits of first, fewer actors warping society in order to capture rents from software they control, eg tax software vendors. On second, destroy one incentive to create addicts.
What are the bad effects to society for software transparency?
One is companies that are less willing to write code or go to market because their code IP wouldn't be competitive given existing players. Smaller new competitors' code would be quickly copied by larger existing players with their larger teams into larger projects that are already used by everyone.
Then there is the case of artistic one-off projects. Imagine a $50 video game releasing its source code immediately or as it is being made. There would be another company that just copies the code or the textures and distributes quickly before the last level is done.
at least the door for extra benefits is open, whereas for closed software the door is shut
This is true, but some doors that you don't want to be open are also shut. It takes a lot of effort to reverse engineer something. I bet all the openssl bugs would be harder to find if it wasn't open source. Especially, if binaries weren't available either - something like only an API layer existing. Maybe heartbleed wouldn't have been found until openssl was replaced by something else.
Finally, something like GNU parallel is very commonly used. On the other hand, some random utility that is on Github and isn't very popular probably isn't looked at by nearly as many people. Out of 100 people who use some software, about 1% looks at source code. So then if you have 1000 people use your tool, only 10 people look at the tool's source code and 1 of them is a malicious actor looking for exploits. I have personally found several bugs in open source software that could have been security exploits, but haven't reported them because I was lazy at the time.
Having said all this, most non-application-specific software could be open source and it would probably help it more than hurt it.