Chapter 7: How to find support for FOSS

One of the major questions that nonprofits have about implementing FOSS in their organizations is 'How will I get support?' We outline here a variety of ways to get support for FOSS, as well as the increasing awareness and expertise about FOSS in the nonprofit sector. We also describe several case studies of nonprofit technology providers specializing in some FOSS projects, and building relationships with developers, which lead to enhanced capabilities for support.Technology support modelTechnical support for any computing product can come from one of four places: internal staff and volunteers, technology consultant(s), software developer or vendor, and the larger community (whether it be the community of nonprofit technology workers, the community of users and developers of a particular product, or the larger user community on the Internet). Support for any software product is either provided to an end-user, or for the person who administers that software in an organization (these may be the same people). Support for FOSS comes from those same four sources, but the emphasis is different. As a general rule, FOSS 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 other software packages for which you can purchase support). However, the community of support for open source software is sometimes much richer than the communities of support for proprietary software. There are some ways that FOSS may lag behind proprietary software in terms of support - FOSS documentation tends to not be as user-friendly, although this is rapidly changing, and there are increasing numbers of independent documentation efforts. There are fewer available printed books on many FOSS 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 FOSS expertise from consultants.There is an increasing amount of support available for FOSS, 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 requests 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. In addition, NTAPs are increasingly adopting and supporting FOSS.
• The producers of mature open source applications (RedHat, Ubuntu, and MySQL are three 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 FOSS 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 developers once dominated the open source community, people with additional skills (technical writers, designers, usability experts, etc.) are now actively participating.
• Several established corporations 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 FOSS adoption. Dell is now selling desktops and laptops with Ubuntu Linux.

We will focus on the first two of these, which are most relevant to nonprofit organizations.Community SupportBoth developers and end users have created rich online communities where peer-to-peer support for FOSS 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 FOSS 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 are very familiar with a particular distribution on those lists. Increasingly, you can find community support on more general nonprofit technology lists, as FOSS 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 it 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.

Case Study: Linuxchix(text by Michelle Murrain)Linuxchix is a growing community of people whose mission is to provide support and resources for women using Linux and FOSS. It is not a community solely of women; there are also many men involved. Linuxchix has several mailing lists, from 'newchix,' for people completely new to FOSS to 'programming' for development questions. The Linuxchix motto is: 'be polite, be helpful.' Because of this motto, Linuxchix mailing lists and IRC channels are an extraordinarily friendly place to get support for a wide variety of Linux and FOSS questions. Because it is a broad ranging community, it might be harder to get support about a very specific issue, but in general, it is another good avenue for support.I've been involved in Linuxchix for over 7 years, and the level of support for using FOSS and camaraderie offered by this community is unparalleled.

Nonprofit, Consultant, and Foundation Support for FOSSThe final trend we will address, and the most important in our opinion, is the recognition within the nonprofit and foundation community that FOSS deserves more attention.Five or six years ago, during the big push to get nonprofits using technology appropriately, 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 TechFinder, Idealist, and CTCnet. There are also many nonprofit technology assistance providers that provide support for FOSS. Finally, there are a number of FOSS developers and projects designed specifically for nonprofit organizations' needs (among them are Benetech, CiviCRM and Organizers' Database). An increasing number of NTAPs and consultants are beginning to specialize in providing support for FOSS, particularly FOSS CMS and CRM systems. Some of these are building relationships with the developer communities, which both strengthen the developer communities, as well as enhance the ability of the providers to give high-level support to their clients using these tools.

Case Study: ONE/Northwest and Plone(interview with Jon Stahl, ONE/Northwest)ONE/Northwest has become a key player in the Plone developers community. They started working with Plone early on, after they realized that the free and open source CMS platforms had reached some level of maturity. Jon Stahl commented, 'We could imagine small non-technical nonprofits could succeed with them - they seemed ripe.' They worked with a number of them, and even considered working with more than on in parallel, but the features and underlying technology of Plone was, for them, enough to sway them to focus just on Plone. For them, as organizers, participating in community comes easily. As they worked with Plone, they started to contribute, and started to write about their experiences. That got noticed, and they were drawn in to work more closely in the community. Eventually, they were even responsible for hosting the global Plone developer's conference. They have also contributed modules and documentation. The relationship is synergistic – ONE/NW can contribute its prodigious organizing skills to help the Plone community.Of course, dedicating the kind of time that ONE/NW does to working with the Plone community has its risks. But Jon says that this time has paid for itself. 'The risk was worth taking because this platform's usefulness is directly related to the health of the community - we can't contribute lots of code, but we can contribute things that help the health of the community. It's a wise thing to do, and very satisfying.'ONE/Northwest's clients have benefited from this relationship because the health of the community means better code for their clients – and ONE/NW has relationships with developers that mean that their questions get answered, their ideas get listened to, and they can have influence over the direction of the development of the project. All of these things make the final products that their clients use better.Case Study: PICNet and Joomla(interview with Ryan Ozimek, PICNet)Like ONE/NW, PICnet has been an active part of the community of Joomla developers, another free and open source CMS platform. They started their involvement slowly, and chose Mambo primarily because of its user-friendliness. They stuck with the product which then became Joomla. Ryan Ozimek says, 'Our way of giving back was to get involved in PR and Marketing' we started with a nonprofit subforum on the Joomla forums. Then we started to help organize the Joomla day events.' Ryan is now on the board of 'Open Source Matters' - Joomla's foundation. PICNet's relationship with the Joomla community means that they are often looked to for leadership around features that might be of use to nonprofits. They have insider knowledge about Joomla development and direction, which benefits their clients. They do wish they'd been able to submit patches and code earlier in their connection with the project – they feel that their work with the core development team has been more powerful than they'd anticipated.Overall, Ryan says 'From a business perspective it's been fabulous.'

If you are a technology provider interested in delving into supporting FOSS for your clients, ask the following questions when deciding to adopt a FOSS project to use with clients:

• Can this FOSS project take care of some needs your clients have at the moment?
• Does this FOSS project have the potential to fill needs in the future?
• Do you have enough expertise in the language of the project (PHP, Python, Java, etc.) and the underlying technologies (web applications, desktop development, etc.) to be able to take full advantage of the project?
• Have you participated in the user community? Is the culture compatible with your culture?
• What might you be able to share with the community? Code? Documentation? Community-building?

From the case studies we've described, getting involved in supporting FOSS can be a very positive experience.

Case Study: NPower and Plone (interview with Patrick Shaw, NPower Seattle)NPower Seattle picked Plone to work with after looking at a variety of CMS packages. They felt that Plone was the most scalable, even though it required a special hosting environment. Hosting Plone themselves gives them better control and support of client sites. They initially got involved in the Plone community through their work with ONE/NW – they went to Plone user groups, and began to host some. In about a year, they were able to start contributing back to the Plone codebase, and documentation. NPower finds the Plone community helpful and friendly, and they say that having access to the developers is terrific for them. Involvement in the community has meant that they have become better developers, and it helps them produce things that become available to other nonprofits and Plone users. However, Plone did have a longer learning curve than they expected, and they also had to learn server administration on top of learning Plone and Python. It's been a challenge for them to figure out a good system for staffing and training. Overall, they are very happy with their decisions to adopt Plone, and get involved in the Plone community. 'We'd been tagged as the 'Microsoft shop'. The tools have matured to the point where we've integrated an open source product into our service delivery ... People are enthusiastic about the tools because they are usable.'Case Study: SolutionGrove and Open ACS(interview with Caroline Meeks)Open ACS is an free and open source CMS platform that supports a number of vertical products, including .LRN, which is a very widely used e-learning application. Solution Grove is a small company that was created by Caroline Meeks, who was on the core OpenACS team. It now has 6-7 staff, where one full-time developer is on the core OpenACS team. Caroline serves on the board of the .LRN consortium. Solution Grove is one of the major companies that does development on OpenACS, and contributes to governance and the core code base.Because of this close relationship, new functionalities can be delivered to clients very quickly at low prices - their clients get 'cutting edge stuff at the fraction of the cost.' Because they are known and respected in the community, they get their questions answered quickly. They give help, and get help back. One downside they see is that contributing to the community does take time - it is a labor of love.

There has been some interest in FOSS among funders. Tech-oriented philanthropist Mitchell Kapor 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 Technology Affinity 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. In addition, The Meyer Memorial Trust, IBM, and the Open Society Institute (OSI) fund the development of and support of FOSS for the nonprofit sector.