I didn’t mind their analogy, but I think an analogy is a poor way to explain such a simple concept. Why not just say, “the code that the developers wrote” or something along those lines? I don’t think the concept of source code is inaccessible to laymen.

> Why not just say, “the code that the developers wrote”

Because some readers might not know what is the source code. Or they might have a vague idea but they might not understand what it means for the source code to be released.

> I don’t think the concept of source code is inaccessible to laymen.

I don’t think the article claims that. On the contrary; how I see it, the article explains the concept.

Well, was that an early draft, or is it after the editors went in and made changes/corrections? How many chapter are in the manuscript?

Blueprints. Source code for a program is analogous to blueprints for a building.

Because the source isn’t a recipe in this analogy it would be akin to buying a cake mix and following the cooking instructions.

A further development of the analogy would be one could try to replicate the cake mix by reading the list of ingredients and using their knowledge of baking and trial an error to replicate it as closely as possible vs getting their hands on the exact formula used by the maker of the cake mix.