Software Freedom: Big, Green & Fair
Saturday saw the annual Chorlton Big Green Festival, one of the country’s largest Green Fairs, and this year blessed with a stall from Manchester Free Software (MFS).
Those of us volunteering to staff the MFS Stall had a great time - not just enjoying the vegan food and drink of the Fair, and catching up with old friends from Manchester’s numerous environmental groups in attendance, but from several hours of talking to the general public about software freedom.
While MFS membership is heavy in Unix admins and programmers, the group is about the philosophy of software freedom, not playing with technology - thus we all enjoyed engaging with the public on why freedom matters in software. Passers by ranged from committed Ubuntu users to those without a computer at home, yet nearly all were responsive to the principle of software built on values of community, education, and sharing knowledge.
Freedom in the 3rd Sector
Indeed, it continues to remain a puzzle why so many in the charity sector actively campaign against Free Software solutions, and promote the sector’s continued reliance on an unsustainable model of dependence on a few tax-subsidised, private companies.
These are issues I hope to tease out a little in my talk on Free Software in the UK Voluntary Sector, and why you should care, at MFS’s 20th April meeting. I’d welcome people with a wide range of views to come along and debate the issue afterwards.
April 29th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
My first experience of Linux in the voluntary sector in 2001 was a bit of a disaster - all we really wanted to do was connect to the internet so we could use email, but instead we got a lecture on how to login as root. Sadly, we had to get a Windows company to put things ‘right’.
I’ve worked in the charity sector in London for 11 years now and you’re right, there is often a real resistance to using free software from many different quarters.
From my experience in smaller, locally governed organisations it’s usually down to ignorance and/or one or two people’s ‘expertise’ with various incarnations of Windows and Windows-only (usually paid-for) software.
In the one national charity I worked for, they had their own IT department at HQ and, of course, their was a vested interest in maintaining (in all senses) the established Windows system.
Now I’m the grandly-titled Chief Exec. of a local charity with just two part-time staff in addition to me, plus a couple of volunteers, a handful of IT savvy members and a semi-computer-literate Board. I installed Ubuntu on all our machines so people have a choice between Windows, Ubuntu and even Mac OSX on a couple.
The only people who seem to get on with Ubuntu (apart from me) are new users who have not used Windows or Mac before. Sadly, I doubt they would even be able to tell anyone who asked that they use Ubuntu - to them it is just a computer for doing work or having fun. Although that’s kind of what it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? People who are used to Windows prefer to stick with what they know, viruses and all, and our Mac users are every bit as fanatical about using our Macs as you might expect.
I had started using GnuCash to keep our accounts, but then we were fortunate enough to have a very experienced accountant join our Board and he uses a Windows-only paid-for programme. But I do think there is a real opportunity to take Linux to all the smaller, local organisations who don’t have IT departments as long as it’s done in the right way, focussing on what people already know and do and building on that familiarity wherever possible.
Hope your MFS meeting went well - The Lass O’Gowrie! Wow! That brings back a few very hazy memories from a long time ago ;-)
April 29th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Hello David, Thanks for the comments. From the sound of your 2001 experience, you were the victim of an “enthusiast” :^)
Good to hear you’ve got a board with some knowledge - I’m sure you know that puts you in a lucky minority. All the groups that have been my biggest pleasure to deal with have also had reasonably clueful boards & usually a good Chief Exec ;)
Sounds like you’re pretty successful with a mixed environment. As cross-platform desktop apps have become more popular, and more apps have moved online, the desktop seems to be less relevant outside of a few users dependent upon niche apps…
…& finance is certainly the one usually tied to Windows. It’s a shame that the BVSC VCS accounts solution, that was dangled so enticingly in front of the FOSS world, seems to have been withdrawn again.