The matching engine described in these documents is not anywhere close to state of the art. The big exchanges can get you fills wire-to-wire sub 100 micros now with binary protocols that you can just cast into a struct without parsing. Open sourcing it wouldn't be a big deal. Heck the original ISLAND would probably give them a run for their money: http://josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/
Besides, exchanges are a network effect problem primarily. People will continue to trade where there's liquidity unless a new market offers something substantially better. Look how many people still used Mt Gox with its constant freezes and rumored insolvency.
Besides, exchanges are a network effect problem primarily. People will continue to trade where there's liquidity unless a new market offers something substantially better. Look how many people still used Mt Gox with its constant freezes and rumored insolvency.