Open Source offers a radically different and exponentially better software development model. Companies can improve their products greatly and significantly increase their market share. Motivations for using and developing Open Source software are mixed, ranging from philosophical and ethical reasons to pure practical issues.

Closed Source software has several fundamental flaws. The nature of Closed Source is such that the internals of the program is intentionally hidden from the user. This software hoarding hurts the user by forcing them to be at the mercy of the vendor and disallowing them from modifying the program to suit their own needs. This monopolistic paradigm is defeated with Open Source, where anybody can use or change the software for their own needs. By not releasing the source code, a company can hide security holes and fundamental flaws from the users. The software vendor is completely in control of the product. The most commercial software is poorly engineered and not subject to peer review.

With Open Source, more people see the code and find and stop problems before they hurt anything. This rapid evolutionary process produces better software than the traditional closed model, in which only a very few programmers can see the source and everybody else must blindly use an opaque block of bits.