There is a great review of the primer in the newest ICT Hub Circuit Rider Digest newsletter, from LASA. That newsletter, by the way, is also chock full of great information, so check it out.

NOSI is very interested in the use of free and open source software in the nonprofit sector. We want to understand better how FOSS is used, what people's attitudes are towards it, and what resources are necessary for organizations to choose and use FOSS. This is the first of an annual survey, so we can track trends of the use of FOSS in the sector, and so we can strategize to meet the needs of the sector.It will take about 10 minutes to fill out. We'd very much appreciate your time!Take the survey.

There has been a lot moving and shaking with NOSI lately. I figured I could give a sneak peek at what projects NOSI has in mind for in the next year.

Madera, California needed a new phone system. Commercial vendors were giving them estimates of $350K and above to replace the system they had. For $140K, they implemented Asterisk, giving them a system that had more value and flexibility than the ones that were going to cost twice as much. Read the report in Computer World - it's quite compelling.

NOSI is in Zagreb, Croatia, for the 2007 Open Translation event, co-organized by Aspiration and the Multimedia Institute. It's a great gathering of folks - both developers of open source translation tools, as well as producers of open content that have needs for translation.

One of the things that people ask when they come first across Free Software is 'why would anybody want to develop software and then give it away for free?'There's an editorial in Free Software magazine that tries to explain this conundrum:'The answer, as amazing as it sounds, is 'convenience'.' It makes life easier and simpler for the developer if other people are using the software that they adapted or developed - it saves them more work in the long run keeping it up-to-date and is therefore 'cheaper'.As the comments p

As you know, a couple of months ago, we released the updated version of the NOSI Primer, which we produced with the generous support of IBM. We added many more case studies and compiled a great list of organizations that support Free and Open Source Software. We collaborated with Aspiration to pull a live feed of FOSS tools that nonprofits can use, so our tool list will be up to date as long as Aspiration's Social Source Commons is an active community. It won't be stale in six months.

Linux has proven itself as a server platform - no one really questions it. A large chunk (the majority?) of nonprofits already use Linux server-side - either in-house, or if not, their web host usually does. But can it really be a desktop platform for nonprofit organizations?Linux on the desktop has come quite far, in just a few years. And recently, there is increasing evidence to suggest that it can, indeed in large part, replace Windows on the desktop. Why should it?

I'll be giving a free 14 week course on the free and open source database management package PostgreSQL under the auspices of Linuxchix. However, anyone can be involved in the course, as long as you follow the Linuxchix motto: 'be polite, be helpful.' The course starts on November 19, and will be weekly lessons, with some assignments and discussion. More info is available on the Linuxchix web site.

A scheme to certify exactly how open certain open source software solutions really are has been launched by the non-profit bodies Open Forum Europe and the Free Software Foundation Europe.There is an online self-certification process dubbed 'Certified Open' which has been designed to test technical and commercial aspects of software interoperability and awards gold, silver or bronze certificates to applicants.The website aims to help different types of organisations avoid proprietary software lock