As more cash-strapped non-profits, businesses, and individuals turn
to free or open-source software to stretch their budgets, the
open-source movement is booming. There may be no better time to talk
frankly about the realities of using free or open-source software in
your organization.
For just about any type of “brand name” software you can name, there
are FOSS alternatives available or in development. Some of the
open-source software is remarkably sophisticated, too; as feature-rich
as their commercial counterparts, and often with long-wished-for
features that the proprietary software may not offer.
First, a little background:
The tech communities that are associated with free software and open source are pretty picky about the terminology that’s used to describe each of them.
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price… [It] is a matter
of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and
improve the software…
You may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may
have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your
copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software,
even to sell copies.
“Free software” does not mean “non-commercial.” A free program must
be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial
distribution.
Open source
is almost as difficult to get a handle on. Open-source software must be
distributed under one of a variety of approved licenses, according to
certain criteria that includes no-fee access to the source code for the
program. Part of the open-source concept, too, is that open-source
software is actively supported by a community of users; in practice,
however, as we’ll see, that doesn’t always work out so well…
To add another twist, most (but not all) open-source software is
free (in both meanings of the word) — and most (but not all) free
software is open source!
In practical terms, to those of us outside those development
communities, the two categories of software are close enough that we
tend to use the terms interchangeably — and that’s probably not going
to change. So the term “free or open source software” (FOSS),
while a bit unwieldy, is a convenient shorthand to describe the immense
body of low- or no-cost software that’s being developed outside the
major commercial software companies.
In tough fiscal times, cutting your up-front software costs can be
an irresistable idea, and that’s undoubtedly one factor helping to
boost the current open-source boom. But it’s not just about the price
tag: Flexibility and the ability to customize FOSS as needed, the
freedom from being tied to one particular vendor, and support
for the ideals of the open-source movement are among other key attractions.
No wonder that “FOSS is actively used in the nonprofit sector,” as a recent survey by the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative
(NOSI) confirms. While the use of FOSS operating systems is still
uncommon, many nonprofits use free and open source applications
“everyday, or at least quite frequently.”
Over the next few weeks, let’s take a closer look at free and
open-source software: the real costs, the barriers, and the trade-offs;
some of the best FOSS alternatives to “brand name” software; and online
resources to help you make the most of it. And I hope you’ll bring
your own ideas and experiences to the discussion — because nothing can
test the true value of software like hands-on daily use, out there in
the nonprofit trenches!
