In this chapter we'll explore why FOSS is critical to nonprofits and the value it can bring to your mission-critical work.
Some examples of this:
Advocates working for better public services in Kenya use software called Huduma (http://www.huduma.info) to collect information from the public via their mobiles and the internet to get a more accurate picture of how resources are being deployed throughout the country.
Relief workers in the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 relied on software called Sahana to coordinate and organize emergency response.
During the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2008, individuals got information about symptoms and the locations of the nearest emergency centers by calling a voice activated phone system that ran on software called “Freedom Fone.”
Activists in China who are posting sensitive information, use software called TOR, which keeps their online activities anonymous and also allow them to circumvent the Great Firewall of China to get to government censored websites, Twitter and Facebook. (https://blog.torproject.org/blog/we-need-your-good-tor-stories).
The reason it's so helpful is precisely because it is open source, which means it's accessible to everyone, is free to pick up and start using in any situation. Open source software also enables nonprofit organizations to develop their own software specifically tailored to meet their needs.
NGO's tend to focus on how software and hardware costs money, however data is their digital power. Software is a vessel to store, control and maintain that data. FOSS gives you maximum control over managing that critical data over the long term.
An important aspect of free and open source software is the issue of community ownership. Of course, a single developer or a few developers can start any project, and, in a sense, they “own” it. They determine the direction of development, choose feature sets, etc. However, because the code to the software is accessible and modifiable, in a very basic way it is community owned. There are no patents involved. Anyone can take the existing code as a starting point and move it in an entirely different direction. This means that other nonprofits who may or may not be working on your issues can benefit from your software development efforts by picking it up and using it as is or modifying it for their own needs.
Sahana is open source software that was developed to track disaster relief in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami struck. Since its development, Sahana has been used for disaster relief all over the world. Sahana was also picked up by a developer working with Huridocs, who modified it and created OpenEvSys, which supports organizations documenting human rights violations. 1
Social justice nonprofits have always struggled to build diverse coalitions based on shared resources and a commitment to strengthen the entire movement, rather than enriching an individual or single organization. Community development groups strongly advocate on behalf of community ownership of resources and property. The concept of community has always been of real importance to nonprofits seeking to build genuine relationships with the individuals and groups with which they work.
The community ownership model of free and open source software means that involvement in that community can have an impact on the direction that software takes. Nonprofit involvement in free and open source developer communities has a direct benefit for nonprofit organizations – NPOs get to be involved in making sure that developers pay attention to their needs.
Perhaps this is where a cost starts to arise around using Open Source; but as a user, it's important that you participate in the community that's built around the software. It's important to submit bugs and give feedback about what works well with the software and what doesn't.
A software license is basically an agreement between the user and the developer on how the software can be acquired, used and shared. Whenever you install software, and click on the “I Agree” button, you are accepting a EULA (or End User License Agreement). The most popular open source license is called the GNU Public License (or GPL). The GPL stipulates not only that the source code needs to be available, but also that the program can be modified and re-distributed, as long as that re-distributed program is also governed by the GPL.
By contrast, most proprietary or commercial licenses explicitly limit the number of allowed users and prohibit modifications to the software. Unlike proprietary or commercial software, one of the hallmarks of FOSS is that there are no unit or per-seat licenses – you can install the software on as many machines as you want, for free. You don't have to track licenses; worry about whether you are running 12 copies of a software package for which you have 10 licenses; and as your organization grows, you don't have to budget for new licenses for software you rely on as you add new users. FOSS enables nonprofits to utilize scarce resources on other things than software licenses. In some cases, organizations get around proprietary licensing limitations by asking users to share accounts and passwords, compromising the security and often the usefulness of the software, and making it very difficult to address misuse when it does arise.
Use of FOSS means that there are no patents involved. So developers are free to build on each other's work, rather than defending themselves against patent infringement.
It also means that you are free to modify the software if there's something you'd like to change. This would include the ability to translate the software, localizing it to meet the needs of a particular community. For instance, if your version of Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office doesn't exist in your local language, you have no alternative but to wait for the software company to decide your language has enough of a market share to warrant a translation. However, FOSS can be freely localized if it isn't in the language you needed it to be. And in general, migrations that happened to achieve localization have stuck.
Many open source software licenses have less restrictions than the GPL. Some don't require the same licenses to be on modified or derivative versions. The Berkeley System Distribution (BSD) license permits derivative applications to be distributed under any license, open or not. Other licenses require developers to document their changes explicitly. See: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.php for an overview of the range of open source licenses.http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.php for an overview of the range of open source licenses.
One of the biggest motivations for migration had been around the issue of pirated software, as using pirated software makes an organization vulnerable; and in countries where the government is more hostile towards civil society organizations, police occasionally target organizations and demand to see their computer software licenses. Any organization using pirated software is prosecuted.
Today's technology environment is extremely information rich. And it's key for organizations to be free to store, protect, package and distribute the information they collect as they see fit.
FOSS is often based on open standards, which enhance the potential interoperability of software that organizations need to use, and also enhance the ability of different software to communicate with each other. The use of open standards can help to prevent “lock-in,” a common problem where organizations are forced to continue using the same product because data migration would be too expensive. And because open standards, particularly open format standards are available to anyone, there's no fear that your data will be unreadable years from now because some proprietary format has been "orphaned" by a vendor.
It then enables users of systems like “Freedom Fone” to integrate the data they've collected into other software like Sahana, which then allows for higher citizen participation in disaster relief areas where illiteracy is high.
The quality of open source software can be better than proprietary software, because programmers learn from each other, the additional “sets of eyeballs” viewing the code tend to catch potential bugs, and there is less commercial deadline pressure to rush the software out the door in an unfinished state. In particular, security vulnerabilities can be brushed under the rug if a limited number of developers are able to look at the source code. However, if the developer community is very small, that can decrease the quality of the code.
When open source software becomes more widely used, it is open to more scrutiny and because it is open source, there's more potential for vulnerabilities to be identified and then “patched.”
As in the case with Tor, where the software is used in the most sensitive contexts and the need for security at its highest, free access to the source code offers the ability for a high level of scrutiny to identify vulnerabilities. Over the years, Tor has become more secure and more widely used.
In contrast, Skype, a proprietary closed source communications platform, has recently been increasingly vague about its security vulnerabilities, and is no longer guaranteeing that its communication channels can't be accessed by third parties.
The business model of FOSS is not about getting users to pay for installations and upgrades. There isn't a demand for more money as new versions are released that are more stable and have new features added. And it's not about forcing users to upgrade hardware if they want to run the latest software. In fact, FOSS is often less hardware intensive and will run on older computers, so you can keep your hardware infrastructure longer or utilize older computers.
For instance, recent introductions from two of the major computer companies demonstrate the “lock-in” effect. Apple has recently introduced the latest versions of its computer and mobile operating systems, both of which are proprietary (meaning you can't modify anything) and one of which, iOS, is completely closed to “unapproved” software – and both of which are unusable on some of Apple's own hardware that may have been purchased only two or three years ago! The result for you, the end user, is to either purchase new hardware in order to use the latest operating systems (and thus take advantage of its new features) or continue to use your old hardware with the older version of the operating systems, forfeiting the new features and also losing the ability in many cases to upgrade to the latest version of the software programs you use. The business model here is to a) use software to push hardware sales, and b) tie you to a specific set of software “stores” where you can be sold profitable (to Apple) apps and media. In general, Apple's “ecosystem” is extremely closed, with limited integration with other platforms. For instance, Apple's own iWork applications fail to recognize open standard formats such as used in LibreOffice. And changing from Apple's platform to another can be a painful process. This is lock-in.
Microsoft has recently introduced its own new Windows operating system, one which incorporates a new user interface along with a new way for software and hardware to interact with that operating system. Simultaneously it has entered into the hardware business with a tablet computer, the Surface. While Windows 8 appears to remain fairly open to use of FOSS and other third-party applications, that is not guaranteed. More likely are the following scenarios that might play out: a) the necessity to eventually upgrade, at considerable cost, all your software so it can work optimally with the new operating system; b) the seeming likelihood that you will have to purchase all that software from the Microsoft's software “store,” which insures that only company-approved software is available (this is already the case with the Surface RT tablet); and c) numerous new restriction on what hardware will work with the new operating system, including the possibility that the hardware will be Windows 8-only and you might not be able to install Linux on that hardware. There are a lot of unanswered questions about the new operating system, but most observers agree that the company is looking to create a closed ecosystem of its own. Here the business model is to lock customers into yet another ecosystem of proprietary software and limited hardware, all of which are costly, all of which is proprietary, all of which move you along a preplanned path of continual, expensive upgrades for software and hardware.
To Microsoft and Apple, along with Google and numerous other lesser companies, the well-being of the user is secondary. To these companies, you are the product, and your information is deemed theirs to buy, sell, and control. The ultimate business model here is that the user is reduced to the level of a commodity. For those of you working on issues of human rights, it should be apparent that such a relationship represents neither political freedom nor social well-being.
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