My colleague Ben Melançon has already cross-posted this twice: you can find his full post on his own Agaric blog or on the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab.

The amazing and wonderful folks at the ICT Hub have created a new resource, called 'FOSS @ VCS' - which includes resources on services, training and certification. Definitely a resource to watch.

Reposted from MediaShift Idea LabI'm currently working as the Technical Director of an online news site in New York City, Gotham Gazette and wrote this piece about a funders decision to require us not only to release the code we develop under the GPL but to develop our web-based news games using free software.Their decision has given me a unique opportunity to 'start the conversation' about free software with a lot of people I'd otherwise have a very difficult time engaging on the issue. My original post elicited a handful of comments, mostly from proponents of software freedom. The nay sayers (who I meet regularly) haven't spoken up as widely, but they are absolutely present.

As the Gotham Gazette prepares to launch our first Knight-funded news game, I've been thinking a lot more about their requirement that we produce our games using free and open source software.

Today, we're releasing the new version of the tried and true NOSI primer. 'Choosing and Using Free and Open Source Software: A Primer for Nonprofits' is a no-nonsense, easy to read report that helps nonprofits understand what free and open source software (FOSS) is, what options are available for their organizations, and how they can access support for using FOSS. The primer includes all of the basics, and also discusses how to look at TCO and strategic value in making decisions about FOSS.

As you might know, we're updating the NOSI primer, and we've gotten lots of interesting case studies of implementation of free and open source software in nonprofit organizations.We're looking for one different kind of case study that we would like to write, something that wasn't present when we wrote the original primer: the relationships that have been built between nonprofit technology providers and open source development communities.

I recently completed an interview with Tim of the 'Social Source Commons':http://www.socialsourcecommons.org, about my 'Recycle-A-Bicycle':http://www.recycleabicycle.org toolbox on SSC.

The primer, 'Choosing and Using Open Source Software' was translated into Russian, by a Russian IBMer. We figured it was at least fun, and possibly informative, to provide it here. It's attached to this post.

As you can see from the site, we have a new logo! Thanks to Noah Scalin, from Another Limited Rebellion. If anyone wants to design us a new drupal theme that fits with the new logo, we'd love to have you do it. You wouldn't get paid, but we'd shout your name out from the rooftops! There has been a lot going on with NOSI both in front of, and behind the scenes. We've had three salons, two Penguin days, a couple of sessions at NTC, and participation in the Nonprofit Developers Summit, all in the course of four months!

As you might have learned, in order to comment on the site, you need to sign up for an account. We're sorry about this - we get an incredible amount of comment spam and false accounts, so we don't have a choice - unless we want to spend all day cleaning up after bots.Also, some of you have had to wait for much longer than we'd like before getting accounts activated - mostly that's due to the time it takes to wade through the dozen false accounts to find the good ones.

Help NOSI pick a logo! We're in the beginning stages of choosing a logo - and these are the two directions our designer has worked on so far. The steering committee is split, so we decided to get community input. These are not final - there will be changes in color, and the like, but they are two very different directions, and we need some guidance.Here's design idea #1:

Here's design idea #2: