As part of our efforts to update the Non Profit Open Source Initiative's Primer, we're putting together a profile of software used by an idealised non profit that relies totally on free and open source software. In the first part of this exercise, we asked people for suggestions on categories that an average non profit would need. Now that we've finished compiling the list of categories, here's the fun part. What software would you recommend for each category?

This site is due for a huge upgrade (from Drupal 5.23 to Drupal 7). Because of the amount of spam accumulated over the years, we're migrating just the content.Look for a new site in the next week or so.

The browser wars between proprietary and open source browsers have changed in some ways from the days that it was simply Internet Explorer vs. Netscape. There are more players on both sides of the field, with some interesting complexities.On the proprietary side, still, sits Internet Explorer, now about ready to pop with version 9. It definitely depends on who is gathering the data, but IE has about 44% of the market. This is down significantly from its high point, back in the dark ages of 2005, when it garnered over 90%. It has been dropping steadily since.

Date: 20 March, 2011Location: Josephine Butler Center, Washington, DC USAEvent Details:Learn about Free and Open Source for nonprofits!Penguin Day is coming to Washington DC on Sunday, March 20, right after the NTC.

LibreOffice (LO) is the fork of OpenOffice.org (OOo) that came after the acquisition of Sun (the old holder/maintainer of OOo) by Oracle. For the purposes of this blog entry, at this moment in time (early 2011,) LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org are the same. (funnily enough, for both packages, the executable is still called 'soffice' - for 'Star Office.')I've been using this tool since it actually was StarOffice, more than 10 years ago, when it was first open sourced by Sun in 2000.

I decided that it was a good time to write a series about open source software options, and their comparisons to proprietary, in 2011, more than 12 years after this whole thing started. And I'll highlight where the comparisons are interesting and compelling, especially for nonprofit organizations.I'll write a series of posts, and cover the following topics:

Aspiration has been a leading advocate for Open Translation, a nascent field of practice emerging at the crossroads of three dynamic movements of the information and internet eras: Open Content, Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS), and Open/Peer Production.

The Penguin Day came to San Francisco on Saturday, April 25, 2009, right before the NTC. A great crowd turned out to discuss open source for nonprofit needs, and educate participants about the rich array oFull details are at penguinday.org.

Proprietary database systems, particularly for the desktop, such as Access and FileMaker Pro, have been ubiquitous in nonprofit organizations. But there are other options. This webinar will focus particularly on OpenOffice.org Base, a quickly developing open source alternative for desktop databases. We'll also cover open source server database systems, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, and talk about how they can be implemented in nonprofit organizations.

Plone is the open source CMS you don't hear a lot about, but is very powerful, and has a vibrant developer and user community. Come hear Jon Stahl, one of the Nonprofit community's Plone gurus outline the requirements for Plone, tell you about setting up a Plone site, and give you the information you need in order to make your new Plone site a success.Tuesday November 25th, 11:00 am PT/2:00 PM ETRegister on the NTEN site