How Open is Open Source?

First of all, I would like to say that I am no techie. Far from it, actually. That is why when I was reading the Wikipedia entry on the nature, function and definition of the term "open source," I felt so lost in the midst of all the jargons used in the Wikipedia article. I was interested, however, in the policy issues surrounding open source so I decided to investigate and familiarize myself more. According to Wikipedia, it generally refers to a type of software license that is available to the public with relaxed or non-existent copy right restrictions. Open source, when viewed this way, seems to have provided an altruistic regime of intellectual property in relation to software development in contrast with the capitalistic, centralized and profit-driven wheels that drives traditional software development. And when one says 'altruistic," we usually think of some romanticized and utopian process wherein communities of users will gather together and put positive inputs or feedback that should ultimately improve the end product, i.e. we would seem to have a perpetually and increasingly desirable software design without a central authority figure who controls the whole development. Users are free to add, improve and allow other people to use their improved version of the software. But is this an accurate description of the software development under an open source regime? Chuck Connell does not seem to think so. In his article entitled "Open Source Projects Manage Themselves? Dream On," he argued that the regime of open source is not the panacea to the woes that people encounter in process of traditional software design process. The article is a reaction to a book by Eric Steven Raymond entitled " The Cathedral and the Bazaar" where Raymond argued that open source may provide the impetus to the "unprecedented shifts in the power structures of the computer industry." Connell disagrees. He says that programs that have been successful as "open source" programs were developed under a strong control of a central management since one, essentially, has to sort good ideas from bad ones thus debunking Raymond's suggestion that a central authority figure is not necessary for the development of a successful open source program. It is a very interesting thesis, actually. But it still makes me wonder why somebody like Linus Torvalds would spend so many waking hours of his life creating a software under a a pay-it forward arrangement. Is he really that nice? What's the catch? After all, maybe the best things in life are not really for free. Here's the link for Connell's short article for anybody interested in reading it. http://www.chc-3.com/pub/manage_themselves.htm