Chapter 6: Examples of FOSS use

We have outlined the basics of FOSS, how it's developed, and why we think the free and open source model is valuable for nonprofit organizations. We've also provided some specific concepts and tools to use to make decisions about the adoption of FOSS in your organization, as well as some specific examples of organizations that have adopted FOSS as a part of their technology infrastructure. We outline here some concrete detailed examples you can try out to begin to put FOSS to work in your organization, and in the process learn more about it, and its capabilities and cost-effectiveness.Example 1: Mozilla SuiteWeb browsing and e-mail are two of the primary tools that nonprofit staff members need to do their daily work. Fortunately, the proprietary software programs typically used to perform these functions all have well-developed open source alternatives that run on Macintosh and Windows platforms in addition to Linux.Most people reading this primer have heard of Firefox. Most have also tried it out, and some perhaps depend on it. Mozilla Firefox, the stand-alone web browser of the Mozilla Suite, is the fastest growing web browser, with approaching 20% market share in North America, and approaching 30% in Europe. Firefox is recognized as a more secure browser than Internet Explorer. In addition, because it is open source, and has an open architecture, developers are producing useful plug-ins and add ons to Firefox. Mozilla Thunderbird is the stand-alone e-mail client.All of the stand-alone parts of the Mozilla suite as well as the full suite are cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux and other UNIXes) and are free to download and use. The full Mozilla suite (now called 'Sea Monkey') includes the components for web browsing and e-mail, as well as additional components including a news-reader, IRC client, and HTML editor. Example 2: OpenOffice.orgOffice productivity suites, including word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, and databases, are critical to the work of all nonprofit organizations, and Microsoft's Office suite is ubiquitous, and often considered essential. However, there is a very capable alternative to MS Office that is freely downloadable, and increasing in capability with each release.The free and open source alternative is called OpenOffice.org, and it is a full-featured office suite that can read and write Microsoft Office files (.doc, .xls, .ppt, .mdb). It contains a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, and database, as well as additional tools that are not present in MS Office. The database tool (called OOo Base) is the least developed of the suite – all of the others have the full feature set of MS Office applications. It is also possible to export PDF files. OOo Base can read Access database tables, so that you can begin a migration to Base, but it does not read forms, queries or reports. Unfortunately, OpenOffice.org does not always completely faithfully render very complex MS Office files.OpenOffice.org is a great alternative if you've run out of licenses from a donation program, or you want to switch to an open source alternative to MS office.

Case Study:East of England (from: http://foss.ciac.org.uk/article43.html)A test study of desktop FOSS implementation in 10 voluntary sector organizations in England was carried out under the auspices of CIAC (Cambridge Independent Advice Centre). They gave a Ubuntu Linux desktop to each organization, which included software such as Open Office, Firefox, Evolution and others. The organizations were invited to an initial session where they were introduced to Linux and FOSS, and then received on-site training. There was an interim assessment at 3 months, and a final assessment at the end of the project.In general, users liked the usability and features of the software, and found it easy to use. However, there was considerable resistance in other quarters, making future implementation of Linux desktops very unlikely in the future. Some contracted technical support staff saw it as a threat to their entrenched monopoly position of using Microsoft software. In at least two cases they put strong pressure on the organizations involved to switch to using Microsoft, making clear that they would not supply any support for Linux, and implying that there were unstated dangers to mixing its use with Windows. This raised fears with decision makers about being able to get longterm technical support for Linux.Managerial staff often thought that they had invested so much money on technical support and solving past problems that a move to Linux would be a waste of the money already spent. Linux desktop migration is sometimes difficult when someone has already heavily committed to a Microsoft server environment, particularly if they are using Exchange server.So even though end users liked their exposure to FOSS, because of resistance on the part of managers and technology support, it is unlikely that this exposure to Linux on the desktop and FOSS applications will result in any new implementations of Linux or FOSS in these organizations.

Example 3: Linux DesktopIf some of your staff are primarily using only the programs mentioned in Steps 1 and 2, then you could experiment by installing Linux on an extra workstation on your internal network. In addition to providing the applications mentioned in the previous steps, Linux comes with many other multimedia and productivity applications.To evaluate using Linux on the desktop, you can take an old desktop that might be gathering dust in the corner (preferably a Pentium processor of 500 MHz or better), and install a distribution of Linux on it. Arguably the easiest but certainly increasingly increasingly popular Linux distribution is Ubuntu Linux. This will give you an idea of how to use Linux on the desktop, and introduce you to a wide range of OS packages for you to test out. It is a good way to understand how Linux works. In addition, there are several ways (see list below) to use Windows software on your Linux desktop, when that is needed.You can also use Ubuntu or others (like Knoppix) as a 'LiveCD' - boot from the CD and run Linux without changing your system.

Case Study: Eco Encore(interview with Jon Stahl, text from Jessie Alan)EcoEncore.org is a small innovative nonprofit organization. They collect used books, CD, DVDs and software, sell these on Amazon, and the proceeds go to other nonprofits. Everything they need for that process is done by volunteers, and happens in a web browser. They received a donation of 10 fairly new Dell workstations with empty hard drives, but with licensed copies of Windows XP - so installing Windows was an option. However, these are machines that have to do only one task: have untrusted volunteers use a web browser, and they needed low maintenance and support. The decision was clear - Linux (in this case, Ubuntu) was the best option, and the 'setup was painless.' Jessie Alan, Executive Director of Eco Encore says:'My summer intern used Ubuntu on his computer. He worked primarily on web-based stuff like website management with Plone, and uploading inventory to BookSku.com. The one thing he struggled with a bit was manipulating digital photos and logos for printed outreach materials.And the benefits are great but were definitely anticipated. We were pleased to save money and find that Ubuntu is very user-friendly and works great for our intern's/volunteer's basic needs.'

Example 4: Open Source CMSIn actual fact, many nonprofits have tried this as their first FOSS exploration. Free and open source Content Management Systems (CMS) have, more than any other FOSS applications, become almost standard in the nonprofit sector. There are three popular FOSS CMS, although there are others in use as well. Drupal, Joomla and Plone are all extremely powerful, capable, and usable CMS platforms, with overlapping feature sets. Drupal and Joomla are easily installable on standard, inexpensive virtual hosting packages. Plone requires special hosting, but there are many hosting companies that can provide it.

Case Study:BCFacts.org(text adapted from a study they wrote)BCFacts.org is a web project of the Conservation Voters British Columbia Education Fund. It is designed to scorecard the BC government's environmental decisions. BCFacts.org ran a proprietary ColdFusion CMS for two years. They became frustrated with the with limited out-of-the-box functionality, high costs of maintenance and any addition of new features, because it negatively impacted their ability to keep the site completely up-to-date with new events. They decided to migrate their site to Plone, giving them a number of important benefits, including a standards-based approach, AJAX functionality, WYSIWYG editing interface, many more out-of-the-box features than they had with their previous platform. The free and open source nature of Plone, as well as the vibrant developer community has been of great benefit to them. 'Now that the site is in Plone, BCFacts.org doesn't need to pay for the site just to exist. Rather, they have budget to spend every month on innovation and because the Plone-community is very active, that budget can often equate to configuring an entirely new add-in module with fairly advanced functionality. In other words, innovation to the site is a fraction of the cost.'Case Study: Greenpeace Canada(interview with Eric Squair)For a new event-related website (http://standtall.greenpeace.ca) Greenpeace Canada needed to allow individual supporters to register to host issue-related parties across Canada, and allow guests to sign up for parties, send RSVPs, and get email reminders. They evaluated some commercial packages, but those generally would require Greenpeace Canada to pay for each event. Using Drupal, a free and open source content management system gave them the flexibility they needed, at a cost that was within their budget. They did find, much to their frustration, that two key features could not be implemented in an intuitive and user friendly way.They are committed to Drupal, even given this limitation. Eric Squair, who implemented the system said, 'What's really needed is a good bounty or development system ... we need a centralized way to hire a developer quickly and painlessly, and feed that back into the system ... it's tough to do these things well so that they are dead easy and intuitive to use.' They feel that given their modest web budget, they can get much more power and flexibility from Drupal than they could ever get from a commercial system.Getting good developers is also important. Eric's advice? '[W]hen you buy proprietary software, you look for a good vendor. With open source, get a good developer you can depend on ... Find someone who will tell you honestly what's up and who communicates well -� free software isn't entirely free - you need someone to tweak things.'