Free and Open Source software

[Dave Everitt]

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is a viable and, some argue, more productive alternative to proprietary licenced software. There is FOSS for all main platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows). This discussion started as a blog comment (Jon posted a video about CIDA which led me to wonder whether Open Source was used in their initiatives).

Further, most of the really popular programming languages among hackers, geeks and (thanks to free web frameworks like Ruby on Rails or Python's Django) increasingly within business, are open source, namely: Perl, PHP, Ruby and Python. Not to mention the Apache web server... and the main working organs of the internet. Commercial software organisations (like Microsoft) have a curious relationship with FOSS, in that there is a recognition of it's value and unstoppability alongside efforts to discredit it and colonise territories where it has taken hold, like the open document format (did they win or did they lobby hard?).

Having limited time today, perhaps this discussion could start with a handful of relevant links:

The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA)
The state of African free software (from Tectonic)
fossafrica.org

plus the original links...

Paul Graham: What business can learn from open source
The Open Source Initiative: Open Source Case for Business

...and a page I put together with some useful free and open source tools.

Finally (for anyone who hasn't already come across it) a case study from the medical profession on the Ubuntu Linux operating system (the web server I help maintain runs on Ubuntu).

Does anyone else use open source? Anyone running Ubuntu or another Linux OS?

[Jon Foster-Pedley]

Great, Dave - this looks like a very productive discussion. Leigh Meinert has just joined this network. Leigh is md of TSiBA, which is a University in Cape Town that provides, like CIDA in Johannesburg, wonderful and free/subsidised education for talented individuals who wold not otherwise have the means to go to University. I'm not sure what their open source status is but I am sure she would be most interested in your support and insights.

[Dave Everitt]

Jon - those projects are inspiring indeed. I've added another post below because I think it's an issue worth returning to. The case for open source in business is already a well-argued one (although still not discussed enough), but I'm more concerned for the education sector, where funds - although always at a premium - are sometimes spent unwisely, due in part to a lack of ready information and a shortage of time for staff and decision-makers to maintain their knowledge. So let's hope others pitch in on this discussion!

[Dave Everitt]

I recently had a discussion about open source with a colleague responsible for my local schools' computing maintenance and advice. While he's keen on introducing open source (and is a Linux user himself), there is a whole load of legacy admin software that only works on Windows. Yet the policies that bring this about are short-sighted, and lead to all-eggs-in-one-basket dependency problems.

The UK creative collective Mediashed has a very good page explaining it's use of open source, with some points containing mention of educational policies, where I think the issue is most pertinent. I'd still like to know what others think, but this thread has not really taken off yet.

At least, with a huge part of internet functionality (and computing history) provided by Unix-based and Unix-derived platforms, education environments should include these systems. If Linux is too geeky to be functional on a day-to-day desktop basis, Apple's OS X (for those already using it) with the FreeBSD underpinnings is another route to the same knowledge. Alternatively, the server technologies of many ISPs are a further way of gaining Unix familiarity. An otherwise redundant or older machine can also be easily installed with Linux, and become useful once more.

But open source is so much more than *nix - on both Windows and OS X there are now many highly viable alternatives to industry standard software packages. We should also be thinking about media portability, and the web as a primary delivery platform, which means using open standards rather than proprietary file formats that tie media producers (and often end-users) to certain software packages. Yet in many areas of the public sector, the IT advice is still 10 years old.