Are Open-Source Cameras the Wave of the Future?

A team of computational photography researchers at Stanford University are working on an open-source camera which allows the user to control how the camera records a scene. Some of these controls can (in theory) even be applied after the image is captured – referring to controls not currently provided by shooting RAW images. Watch the video for the description in a nutshell.

Stanford photo scientists are out to reinvent digital photography with the introduction of an “open-source” digital camera…”

I love open-source projects (at least in principle), but I have somewhat mixed feelings about the paths traveled by photography and technology as the two advance. I appreciate the technology side, but hope that photography doesn’t simply evolve (or is that “devolve”) into “digital manipulation”. There are several ways to appreciate and interpret all of this I think. Check it out here. What do you think?