Open source activists nowadays stress that they love and support copyright. Technically they are correct; they use copyright to force restrictions on downstream users.
In practice the movement is an undermining of copyright. Open source uses copyright to strip the benefit from the creator, rejecting the original intent of copyright. It relies on the original drafters of copyright never imagining that beneficiaries of copyright would use it to deny benefits to themselves. This is particularly so with the notorious GPL.
Open sourcers phrase their philosophy as bestowing freedoms on users, but it also removes them. For example, Zymaris describes it like this:
Your extensions to it have to be fed back into the same pool. I am using my IP to hook you in and get your IP. (Hansard, 2004b: 79)
Problems arise where government funded research is released under licences like the GPL. That work is available to everyone, but the best developers are barred from commercialising it. In this sense, licencing regimes such as the GPL hinder further innovation rather than advancing it.
The ideology behind open source can be seen in reactions of the open source movement to moves by the German government in 2002 to amend copyright legislation so that creators would be protected from exploitation by publishers or re-sellers. The legislation prevented creators from waiving or being coerced into waiving their right to adequate compensation for use of their works. Open source lobbyists insisted on an exemption for open source, so that open source developers could continue to be exploited. (Hahn, 2002: 5)
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"Open Source is bad for Australia" is such a blanket statement that I would have to disagree.
The author makes valid points about GPL on occasions hindering, rather than enhancing business, but GPL is not the only Open Source model. GPL is often used with the attitude "I am not making any money out of publishing this code, so why should anyone else." Unfortunately, R&D investment can not be warranted "commercially" on a GPL system, because the entity spending the money does not get any benefit (except knowing they might make the world a better place).
There are also instances where Open Source would be detrimental to commercial interests in Australia. But Open Source often brings benefits, which is why I disagree. One of the problems with proprietary source code is that if the particular vendor goes bankrupt, or a relationship sours with a vendor, your data is effectively held hostage (Most of the time, you can not simply port to another vendor's package). Whilst open source doesn't guarentee flexibility (there may be binding contracts even in open source), in my view you are certainly more secure.
Secondly, many open source products are free. This is not co-incidental, but a consequence of GPL and alike. In fact, this is one of the factors hinted at in the article. I would like to suggest that Open Source classes, databases, languages, APIs and alike can significantly reduce development time. Most open source products have public documentation, so they don't need to be re-documented. Furthermore, not having to pay license fees can assist a software company to be more profitable.
Thirdly, on following on from point two, cheaper development costs inevitably lead to more competitive markets and cheaper prices to the end user. This makes software more accessable to Australians.