If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It
One reason that "just open source it" isn't as easy as it sounds is that there tend to be a lot of IP restrictions, patenting and licensing encumbrances, NDAs, etc. that would take effort to identify much less resolve. When companies, like Sun, open sources various software, it took considerable effort to nail down all the problems and remove the parts that weren't there's to open source--which in the case of a device like a camera might well make the whole thing useless.