This is a waiting game. If you put money into Ripple at this time, you are risking that OpenCoin never open sources or simply disappears. Speaking as an investor in XRP, I am well aware of this. As with any investment, use your head, think about the risks. Never risk more than you can afford. Don't listen to people on forums, make up your own opinion.
Of course you'd figure once OpenCoin becomes open source the Ripple price will go up... But it has already gone up. Way da hell up. 52 XRP / $1. Something is wrong when a Bitcoin Talk account is worth $200.
At that price, the total XRP pool is worth almost 2B USD, and OpenCoin's share is already worth 500M (albeit in a very illiquid/fragile market). I bet they're not raising money at that valuation from investors, though.
It's based on the scarcity of the currency... which isn't scarce at all. But this obviously won't stop speculators.
I had another random question.
Let's say I have a "John Doe - $5 USD" IOU pending. John Doe does not have $5 USD in the gateway, but he does have 5 dollars worth of BTC in a gateway. Will the gateway automatically sell John Doe's BTC to pay me $5?