Open Source Robotics with the Raven

I love the term open source; most think of Linux, MySQL, php or other computer science related ideas. Raven is actually an open source platform for software programming a robotic system developed by the University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz.
What does this mean? Well, one example would be doing surgery on a beating heart, but the instruments and camera would move in concert with the heart beat, making the surgeon less distracted during surgery. Maybe it would also bring more innovation to surgery, taking it out of the monopoly situation we are in right now.