Sorry man, open source as you describe is everything but 'old-school'
Patents are certainly older than either of us!
This is not about 'secret tek'. Check out this d-nail patent application for example bro -
http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat20160345385.pdf - It is openly communicated in overwhelming and verbose detail for all to see!!!
This is about saying that if you use someone else's idea, you pay royalties and you recognize their invention and blood, sweat and tears. Bubbleman had no problem doing that and paying royalties. Folks are gonna have to do the same with BHO now that Indra is enforcing his patents. This is the MMJ industry growing up
Let me clarify the problem with your claim above about 'secret tek' - a patent is not designed to prevent other companies from using other people's breakthrough designs in their future products. It is about ensuring that the originator of the design/idea is honored and paid a small royalty (typically in the lower single digits percentile range).
We've always had to protect our intellectual property to earn a living off of our ideas. Inventing is a very thankless path until you get products that start to gain popularity and finally pay the bills. Would you ask another kind of worker to give away their work for free?
Remember that these ideas came from real investments of money, labor and time to develop/design/refine and those people deserve to be remunerated and recognized for their inventions. That is how it has always been in our system. Josh could license anything that d-nail or any other companies hold relevant patents just by approaching and negotiating an agreement for a nominal royalty fee. There is nothing preventing him from using these ideas without infringing on patents
So you are right, something can be done without breaking IP
Either IP can be licensed, or Josh could develop something new and different to overcome the current limitation