There is no reason to believe that if he enforced his patent that others could not improve on his design and share improvements with him. The patent would only prevent others from profiting after ripping off his idea. Ironically, manufacturers might not even want to build his invention without a patent and if he never had it manufactured or patented, it would be much less likely that his idea would get out into the public eye, so his idea would have had less influence and exposure. If his goal was to attract attention to his invention, the open source route would be less effective and his idea might be lost over time.

It seems that he is trying to claim that the patent process is keeping his ideas from the public, but that would not happen if it was released “open source.” But one of the main reasons that he was awarded a patent is that he was willing to share his idea with the public, and that’s exactly what he would do if it was disclosed through an “open source” release anyway.

I’m not saying it was a bad decision for him to go open source, just that his reasoning is not very solid.