Charity Shuns Open Source Code 115
brown-eyed slug writes, "The BBC has an article explaining Christian Aid's decision to use Microsoft software in preference to Linux. It re-opens the classic debate about the total cost of ownership, highlighting the wider availability of Microsoft skills, as well as the beneficial pricing policy of the Seattle giant. From the article: '...one of the things that we find is that Microsoft is viewed as the big, bad organization — but they've actually got some good corporate social responsibility. If you're a charity or an educational institution, you pay pence in the pound for the license, compared to what a major bank might pay.'" While the Christian Aid spokesman makes some good points, he seems to miss totally the idea of open code — confusing code with data.
Lots of cheap software (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.techsoup.org/stock/category.asp?catalo
http://www.techsoup.org/stock/category.asp?catalo
Guilty as charged (Score:5, Informative)
If I tried to put Linux on the desktops, erm I'd probably be sacked.
There are sooo many little 'bits and pieces' we use in this organisation which simply wouldn't work in Linux. Funders often provide their own software, for example, that we are expected to use in order to capture data and return facts and figures. Sometimes it's written in Access, sometimes VB or something else - but 99 times out of 100 it's for Windows.
Just recently we had to roll out some health and safety training software for our young trainees who we get paid good money for. Interestingly it's mostly written in Shockwave which is available for Linux I believe, but it's all wrapped in a
OpenOffice isn't quite there yet either - we did try it a few years ago (to be fair it'll have improved since), and aside from the staff saying "I'm not using this because I'm not used to it, put Office back on please" there were often so many little formatting/translation issues that didn't work properly when people took work home to their MS Office based computers.
Digital cameras are a big part of our work, for collecting training evidence. Unfortunately the departments were 'let loose' in buying their own digital cameras from those above me and so inevitably we ended up with a bunch that have a proprietary USB interface (as opposed to mass storage) and are not supported in Linux.
With the diversity of our projects, the project leaders just so often need a piece of custom software. Until Linux becomes more widely adopted, or WINE something resembling useful (sorry but it *still* doesn't run most of the software I throw at it) it is simply not viable. As much as we'd love to save the money, it turns out that the money is actually worth spending.
Unfortunately, although there is a religious crusade behind the basic existence of our charity, it's the one called Christianity - not the one called Linusanity
wow i guess fud works on charity organizations (Score:2, Informative)
you dont have to pay for support contracts, and your system is not wide open for anyone to look at... ofcourse anyone with have a brain (most of the people on slashdot) already knew that
it comes down to that guy being unaware of the subject and wasting money
Charity loves free software (Score:3, Informative)
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/3355/469 [europa.eu]
FAIR is an international non-profit NGO with its headquarters in Norway, aiding developing countries by supplying resources within ICT, such as hardware, software, training, information and support. By combining brand new hardware with first-class second-hand computers and the latest software upgrades applicable, FAIR aims to become a premier ICT supplier providing world leadership in cost effective computer networks and communication solutions.
http://www.fairinternational.org/ [fairinternational.org]
The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research has founded a report about free software in schools. It covers planning and deployment of Skolelinux/DebianEdu that currently includes 234 Norwegian schools, 33,000 client machines, and 101,000 pupils and teachers. It cover technical issues, economical and organisational issues. There are also feedback on how teachers uses free software in teaching.
The report basicly says that Skolelinux/DebianEdu has 30-40 percent less Total Cost of Ownership compared with proprietary solutions. This is based on experiences with free and propretary software at many schools operated centrally.
http://developer.skolelinux.no/artikler/2006-04-0