The philosophy behind the open source model is “Openness of knowledge”.

Making knowledge transparent improves quality.

Having source code open allows peers programmers to view it, give critics on it, and the software evolves better.

Sharing knowledge brings efficiency.

Sharing already developed software and source code allows programmers to save time and cost and makes the software development process much more efficient.

Translated knowledge into local need becomes more useful and valuable. Since the source code is open, same software can be customized differently. Same MS Word can be customized differently by adding more of graphical gene simulation function for the users in molecular epidemiology lab or by adding more of statistical analysis function for the users in biostatistics lab.

Global collaboration is indispensable in open source development.

Open source software is developed by many, sometimes hundreds and thousands of programmers around the world. Some contribute more, some contribute less, but everyone, either a user or a programmer, wherever he or she is, can be a good critic and make a valuable contribution to improve the quality of software.