Software > Buying & Owning Software, Open Source

Going With Open Source Software

By Marnie Webb, Compumentor

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The bottom line

So, it would seem that open source software for voluntary organisations is a good idea that doesn't quite work. That may be true. It depends on the specific needs of your organisation. When you are considering a solution for any aspect of your technology structure, it's a good idea to make a list of the requirements that solution has to meet. If you find an open source solution that meets your requirements, spend some time on the project's Web site.

Remember that comprehensible support and product development should be one of your main requirements, and make sure you can get the necessary support from the site or associated mailing lists.

More Information

For more information on open source software see the software section of the lasa Knowledgebase and the following sites:

• IT For Charities
  
• www.techsoup.org
  
• Open Source.org

For more information on issues around using open source software in non profit organisations see the knowledgebase article Is Linux Ready for Non-Geeks? and the following resources:

• Choosing Open Source: A decision making guide for civil society organizations
• Community Bandwidth article What not-for-profit organizations need to know about free software 
• Dot org media article Six steps you can take to use Open Source Software to address needs in your organization
• Choosing and Using Open Source Software, A Primer for Nonprofits (This is a PDF document, to read it you'll need to download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader if it is not already installed on your computer).

Comment

Max from UK-based organisation Seeds for Change, which has successfully made the tranistion to Open Source makes the following comment on this article:

"Independent (as opposed to Microsoft funded) studies are showing Linux (KDE and Gnome [graphical interfaces for Linux] ) to be as usable as Windows XP.

"Just as an example, all office workers in our organisation have been using Linux desktops for over 2 years (none are techie - all describe themselves as users).

"The potential problems feared in this article (re: compatibility of free software office suites with Microsoft Office) is not a problem we've had. We've been happily opening, saving and using Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, and never had any real problems. (In contrast to before we migrated to Linux, when we constantly had problems opening MS Word docs with other versions of Microsoft Word…)

"Support and installation should be thought about, … groups should definitely check that technical help is available before migrating. However I find the complaint that Linux is difficult to install unjustified: How often do users actually install Windows? It is done by people confident with this task. The same standards should be applied to installing any other OS (operating system) - those who are confident or willing to learn are doing the work so it is their standards of "easy" or "difficult" that installation and setup should be judged on. Comparing the installation and setup of GNU/Linux distributions such as Mandrake, SuSE or RedHat with Microsoft Windows (any version) leads me to the following statement: 'installing Linux distributions such as Mandrake or Red Hat has never caused me as much frustration or work as installing any Windows version (right back to Win3.0)."

The resources section of the Seeds for Change website contains practical information on making the change to Linux.