Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 8th Nov 2006 19:59 UTC, submitted by Coxy
The theory behind open-source software is that it avoids many of the pitfalls - including cost - of closed alternatives. But Steven Buckley, who runs Christian Aid's common knowledge programme, prefers to buy software from the likes of Microsoft. Is this not odd for a charity? "Open-source doesn't mean free," he told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme. "Quite often, if you install open-source software within an organisation, you have a support contract that goes with it - it's an essential part of operating that software. Over time, that can actually cost more than having Windows on an enterprise machine."
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Member since:
2006-04-28
Of course a number of these charities will have some in house developers hired to run various things, custom access and .NET based data related junk, based on something non free by MS, resold as something non-free by someone else and then finally hacked at by their overpaid inhouse dev team, surely if you're going to do this kind of thing then starting on a Free and Open platform and getting techies who can cope with this idea isn't such a bad move?
As long as the likes of Steven Buckley happen to prefer the idea of big name branded software products i guess all of your donations to christian aid will undergo a small Microsoft Tax, I suppose its up to us to boycott these charities if they don't work in a way that we feel is acceptable, if they want support all they need do is ask the community, if they are too proud or stupid to do so then just pass them by.
Of course RH, Novell, etc, all need to wake up and realise that providing free or low cost support to charities would be a very sensible move, though they may not be quite as well able to afford it as Bill, and maybe they can make ridiculously over the top donations to charity the same way Mr and Mrs Gates do too.