When you have code that is not open source, it is still "open source" to the person or company who made it. If it was a company, a person might be able to get a job there, learn the "passwords" for accessing the code, and make it open source to himself.
A layman might download a simple program that will give him an open-source look at some, general programming. Or he might be able to figure out how to access and view the code in a simple text program. But it is still useless for him. It tells him nothing (except if their are instruction line built right into the code, as franky1 said). He still needs to learn programming to figure out what the program is doing.
The point is, the average person hears the term "open source." He doesn't realize that this term isn't as useful to him as it is suggested to be. Why? Because he still doesn't know what is going on in the program. Very few people really know, even though it is open source.
A programmer might be able to figure this stuff out. But even a programmer might not find hidden things that are going on in a multiple hundred thousand line program, without some in-depth study of the program. "Open source" just might be a term that some programmers use to allay the suspicions and fears of other programmers (and, of course, lay people), while they stick some code in that does a bunch of other things that nobody else knows, and that most people would not want if they knew it.
A layman might download a simple program that will give him an open-source look at some, general programming. Or he might be able to figure out how to access and view the code in a simple text program. But it is still useless for him. It tells him nothing (except if their are instruction line built right into the code, as franky1 said). He still needs to learn programming to figure out what the program is doing.
The point is, the average person hears the term "open source." He doesn't realize that this term isn't as useful to him as it is suggested to be. Why? Because he still doesn't know what is going on in the program. Very few people really know, even though it is open source.
A programmer might be able to figure this stuff out. But even a programmer might not find hidden things that are going on in a multiple hundred thousand line program, without some in-depth study of the program. "Open source" just might be a term that some programmers use to allay the suspicions and fears of other programmers (and, of course, lay people), while they stick some code in that does a bunch of other things that nobody else knows, and that most people would not want if they knew it.
I guess its a bit like a Rolls Royce Jet Engine, they take the cover off it and you can see all the bits inside it, they even invite you to pull it apart and put it back together in your own way, did somebody forget to explain how it all works including mechanical engineering, fluid dynamics, thermal dynamics and maybe the laws of physics, anything technical takes "Your" time to filter into your pea brain and it's nobody's fault that technically it is quite an accomplishment and nobody's fault that they don't convert it into Duplo blocks just for you. People think thru an entire concept with all the technical tools thrown in there at their disposal, you need to understand the tools first.
Anybody else's uncompiled source code is hard to follow even when it is quite documented as you don't understand always what they were thinking or why they would want to do a certain thing or perhaps some think a lot of what they see is unnecessary.
I find it hard to follow my own undocumented source code as well as some that I took the time to put comments on. Commenting takes time if you are intending to have someone else understand your thinking.
While I am a programmer who has never looked at the said source code, it would discover that "it is" open source and I would be pretty amazed that I was able to have it all in that format, then I would begin my long long journey of understanding the literature.
I guess open source "English Language" is only when you know how to speak, read and write it, at the beginning knowing English at all, what was it? Some effort I would say but certainly no secret.
Why don't you try a programming language to understand why your expectations are kindergarten like, I'd suggest GWBASIC would be perfect for you !
.... People were quick to identify malicious code in Bitcoin XT, when it revealed some "backdoors" 
