How to Find Support for Open Source Software

One of the major questions that nonprofits have about implementing OSS in their organizations is “How will I get support?” We outline here the variety of ways to get support for OSS, and the increasing awareness and expertise about OSS in the nonprofit sector.

Technology support model

Technical support for any technology product can come from four places: internal staff, technology consultant(s), software developer/vendor, and the larger community (whether it be community of nonprofit technology workers, like the Circuit Riders, the community of users of a particular product, or the larger user community on the Internet). Support for any software product is either for an end-user, or for the person who administers that software in an organization (these may be the same people).

The standard paradigm for support for proprietary software used to be that when you bought the software, support for installation and troubleshooting problems was free for as long as you owned the software. Training on how to use that software was sometimes provided by the software vendor at a cost, or often provided by consultants or other organizations/companies. This is to some extent still the case for large, expensive and “niche” packages such as client management and fundraising programs.

Slowly, vendors of more commoditized proprietary software (like word processors and operating systems) have reduced the availability of free support over the past few years. In general, support for most proprietary software at present is only free for a very limited period of time, or only for installation issues, then you have to pay for it, often by the incident. Some software vendors provide no free support at all.

Support for OSS will come from those same four sources, but the emphasis is different. As a general rule, OSS is not created by, or supported by a company that you can call on the phone or e-mail for support. (There are exceptions, like some Linux distributions, and some packages like MySQL where you can purchase support). However, the community of support for open source software is, in general, much richer than the communities of support for proprietary software.

There are some ways that OSS may lag behind proprietary software in terms of support – OSS documentation tends to not be as user-friendly, and there are fewer available printed books on many OSS packages (however, there are many books on the most popular applications). In addition, as we’ll describe below, it can be harder to find local, or sector-specific OSS expertise from consultants.

There is an increasing amount of support available for OSS, due to the following five factors:

• Open source applications have developed sophisticated user communities, and have even created free web services and applications (like SourceForge and PhpBB) that enable a volunteer-based community to collaborate on answering questions, creating tutorials, and reporting bugs and request for new features.

• The nonprofit community itself, including foundations, independent consultants, and NTAPs (nonprofit technology assistance providers) is recognizing the inherent advantages of open source software tailored to the specific needs of the nonprofit groups they support.

• The producers of mature open source applications (PHP and MySQL are two examples) often sell their software bundled with support. Since the software itself can be obtained for free, “value added” is essential to create the sales needed for a viable business model. Other OSS producers do not offer support themselves, but refer users to a growing number of small support providers. The cost is often competitive with the price that larger firms charge for support of popular proprietary applications. And it is optional: if you can do without phone support, you do not have to pay for it.

• Where software engineers once dominated the open source community, people with additional skills (technical writers, usability experts, etc.) are beginning to more actively participate.

• Several established computer companies have recognized a self-interest in supporting the development of open source options, and are now investing tens of millions of dollars (or more) each year to address the shortcomings that hinder widespread OSS adoption.

We will focus on the first two of these, which are most relevant to nonprofit organizations.

Community Support

Both developers and end users have been active in creating rich online communities where peer-to-peer support for OSS can be found. There are many mailing lists, website and even chat rooms devoted to users of open source software products. Users of the Linux operating system can find support by seeking out the nearest Linux User Group. We list some of the possible sources of Linux community support below. If you do seek help from other OSS user or advocates, you will likely notice a culture that is cooperative and giving, consistent with the charitable nature of most nonprofit organizations. In many cases, the developers themselves monitor these lists, and will participate in answering questions.

Each Linux distribution has one or many mailing lists that you can use for support. In general, those tend to be high traffic, and there are generally people who really are very familiar with a particular distribution on those lists. Increasingly, you can find community support on more general nonprofit technology lists, as OSS is used more often in the community.

In general, it is surprising how many people have had the same question you might have, and have gotten in answered in some online forum or list. Typing the key portion of your question in Google will often lead to successful resolution of many issues.

Nonprofit, Consultant, and Foundation Support for OSS

The final trend we will address, and the most important in our opinion, is the recognition within the nonprofit and foundation community that OSS deserves more attention.

Three years ago, there were only a handful of nonprofit consultants who advertised expertise in open source solutions. Today there are literally hundreds consultants available, and you can find them through the consultant databases available through Idealist, CTCnet, and NTEN (see sidebar). There also exist about a dozen nonprofit technology assistance providers (see sidebar) that provide support for OSS. Finally, there are a number of software applications designed specifically for nonprofit organizations' needs (eBase, Organizers' Database, PageTool, XINA) that are either fully open source or are moving in a more open source direction.

These trends are now gaining attention among philanthropists. Tech-oriented philanthropist Mitchell Kapor recently founded the Open Source Application Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the creation and maintenance of quality end-user open source software. Philanthropic organizations like the TechFunders Collaborative and the Technology Assistance Group of the Council on Foundations are including open source sessions at their conferences. Some foundations are now requiring, as a condition of their grants, that any software developed by grantees must be made available, under an open source license, to the entire nonprofit sector.

The Meyer Memorial Trust, IBM, and the Open Society Institute (OSI) are beginning to fund the development of and support of OSS for the nonprofit sector. Jonathan Peizer of OSI, circulated a 9-page paper in September 2003 entitled “Realizing the Promise of Open Source in the Nonprofit Sector.” The paper addressed the challenges of developing nonprofit-specific open source applications, including the need to develop a rich support infrastructure that can be made available along with nonprofit-specific software titles.

These developments indicate that the days when OSS was only relevant to computer geeks are now over. In the next year, there is no reason to believe that the pace of these changes will slow down.