Open vs. Closed

In a world where tech start-ups are run by people with access to open source, and even extremely cheap closed and proprietary programs to build their businesses, what serves geeks with business goals best?
The entire conversation revolves around what will lead to great businesses in technology, and the general theme is creating open access to whatever information, people, money and structure will drive that. It’s a great conversation laced with geekiness, economic debates, battles over coding and the challenges of standardization in a constantly evolving industry.