Open source (English: open source) is a development system that is not coordinated by a central individual/institution, but by actors who work together by utilizing source code that is distributed and freely available (usually using internet communication facilities). This development pattern takes a bazaar-style model, so that this Open Source pattern has characteristics for the community, namely the encouragement that comes from a culture of giving.

The Open Source pattern was born because of the freedom to create, without interference from thinking and expressing what is desired using knowledge and suitable products. Freedom is the main consideration when released to the public. Other communities have the freedom to learn, tweak, revise, justify or even blame, but this freedom also comes with responsibility, not freedom without responsibility.

In essence, the concept of open source is opening the "source code" of a software. This concept feels strange at first because source code is the key to a software. By knowing the logic in the source code, other people should be able to create software with the same function. Open source is just that. That is, he does not have to be free. The original definition of open source is as stated in the OSD (Open Source Definition).

The development of Senayan was initially initiated by the Ministry of National Education Library management. But now the Senayan developer community (Senayan Developer Community) is taking more of a role in developing Senayan. Some of the things below are the culture that was built in developing Senayan:
1.    Meritocracy. Anyone can contribute. Those who contribute a lot will get more privileges than others.
2.    At least have concern about library development. Other examples: educational background in library and information science, working in a library, managing a library, etc. It is hoped that with this condition, a sense of librarianship will be inherent in every developer/user of Senayan. So far, all Senayan developers are librarians or have an educational background in librarianship (Information and Librarianship).
3.    Release early, release often, and listen to your customers. Early release means that every improvement and feature addition is released to the public as quickly as possible. It is hoped that existing bugs can be quickly discovered by the community, reported to developers, and then fixes are released. Release often, meaning as often as possible providing updates to fix bugs and add features. This "forces" Senayan developers to continue to be creative in adding Senayan features. Frequent releases also make users believe that Senayan has good sustainability and continues to be actively developed. Apart from that, frequent releases also have a marketing impact. Users and potential users are always reminded of Senayan's existence. Of course, in an elegant way, namely Senayan releases. Since it was first released to the public in November 2007 to July 2009 (approximately 20 months) there have been 18 official Senayan releases. Listen to your customers. Senayan developers always try to accommodate user needs, whether they come in through reports on the mailing list, or through the bugs tracking system. Of course, not all input is accommodated, it must be adjusted to Senayan's design and development roadmap.
4.    Documentation. Senayan developers believe in the importance of good documentation in the successful implementation of Senayan in many places. Because of this, Senayan developers have a special team responsible for developing Senayan documentation so that it remains up-to-date following the latest releases.
5.    In order to speed up development and to bring closer ties between Senayan developers, at least once a year a Senayan Developers Day is held which gathers Senayan developers from various cities and code together.