[Open Source]

[Alexandra Krasne], Notetaker

Key issues, changes and trends

        good quote: "what good is open source software; it's a bunch of social communist crap?"

 We're beginning to see a bubble with open source. It was founded on fundamental needs for developers for themselves. A commercially viable community has fundamental needs. The roots are about solving an individual problem for the group's needs.

Core open source vendors need to care about end users; it's important to figure out how to do that.

What's frustrating is that you've got developers speaking language in own bubble, asking why community doesn't get it, why don't developers get it?

If it doesn’t look good, people won't use it. Make it beautiful and people will use it -- like Firefox. Geeks have poor aesthetic taste. People do care.

Successful tools and techniques

        Firefox gets it: beautiful, Open Source, and easy to use.

Keys to success

Examples, websites cited:

       Funable, mobile open source

Sourceforge

drupal

CiviCRM

CivicSpace 

Miro/mambo CMS

jumla    

webmin (sys admin tools)

Impact/applicability to social change

      Why is a healthy commercial open source important to nonprofits?  It spurs innovation, drives towards standards, spurs innovation.

Recommendations for individuals and organizations

       Overselling: the state of open source is that we can sell a huge social change, yet we have trained our entire sector to apply commercial RFP analysis. People often decide which vendor to use by asking how long has the vendor been in business? But how long has an Open Source vendor been in business? You can't decide based on that because Open Source vendors haven't been in business for the same length of time.

In the end, nonprofits will adopt technology they need at a price willing to pay