How to explain Open-Source to your boss? [closed]

Question

My boss was in the past not really interested in Open-Source. He always was fine, if we developers used a library or framework, that came at no cost. But he was never interested in details.

But some customers talked about Open-Source and so he got the idea, that such a thing exists. Recently he surprised us, because he wanted to make a talk to us about open-source and a open-source-strategy for our company.

So he told us about a system for licensing our software in the future. This system included registering for downloads and that nobody was allowed to give the code to third parties and really no one is allowed to change the code without our permission. So I said that's fine but not open-source and he was a little unhappy about that.

The problem was, that he had really no idea, what open-source is. How do you would explain the concept of open-source to your boss?

Edit: I think my boss has a real problem to understand, that a community of developers without the strong lead of a company. As I see it, he thinks people working in private cannot produce some useful software. Consequently he believed the Apache webserver and Linux were products by Sun. And he looked confused, as I explained that I could take the code from the Apache webserver, change some bits and release this changed webserver as an own product (with other words: make a fork).

I'm sure he don't really wants to release open-source, but he doesn't understand the idea of it, so I look for a way to explain it.

Answer 1

The Magic Cauldron by Eric S. Raymond helped me to understand the value of contributing to and/or starting an open source project. It may help you explain the value and decision variables to him.

Edit: The actual paper rather than just the abstract may be found here. Please respect the Copyright notice.