The first picture with the stitches looks proper tight and was probably irritating the dog along with the healing process. The second picture (open wound) looks ok, nice and clean. As Skycat said licking is a good thing, keeps things clean, removes foreign bodies etc, something with my experience vets often miss and end up sewing something in! I've seen dogs heal on the out side and later this has caused an abscess, the body reacting to a foreign body (dirt,hair,etc).
Open wounds generally take a little longer to heal but in my experience they heal more reliably and a lot of the time if a dog