Open Source Software
Why use itYou can keep your costs down. Most open source software projects are free to download under the GPL licence . Your organisation is not tied into expensive update and maintenence contracts and licencing arrangements. Open source software is reliable and well written.
Open source software is not just for nerds. It is already mainstream. 80% of the web runs on the back of open source software, and it is backed by some big names in the computer industry, e.g. Sun Microsystems, The Apache Foundation, The Mozilla Foundation.
Why choose not to use itThere is a lot of commercial support available for the popular proprietary software packages, e.g. Microsoft Office. There is not the same wide availability of support from companies for open source software, although many open source projects look and feel very like their proprietary counterparts. Arguably, if you can use the proprietary version, you can use the open source equivalent.
Open source projects are built by communities of developers. They tend to have an active community of enthusiastic participants who all want to make the software better, iron out problems and contribute. Therein lies the technical support which might otherwise scare off would be users of open source software. Projects have forums specifically for people to ask the community for help, and the community tend to be happy to oblige. For example, the Open Office support site .
Where to get itYou can get open source software from the internet. Sourceforge is the world's largest Open Source software development web site, but most projects will have their own websites. Below please find a selection of good open source software of direct relevance to community and voluntary organisations.
OpenOffice.org - a complete office solution
GIMP - an image manipulation program
Inkscape - creates and edits vector based images, e.g. for logo design
Audacity - records sounds, e.g. for the creation of podcasts
GNUcash - a financial package
SugarCRM , CiviCRM - Contacts relationship management tools
Thuderbird - an email client
Firefox - a web browser
