I think you kind of have to look at it from Makerbot's perspective - they themselves have invested a lot into the hardware/software (aside from the community), and other people are already beginning to rip them off (like the guy who took the exact design and manufactured it in China for his Kickstarter campaign). I admit, I might be misunderstanding the current situation, but this is my take on it given what I have learned thus far. I will happily buy closed-source hardware/software, so long as it is good.