OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

ADOPTING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE POLICY FOR ORGANIZATIONS Advantages and Challenges!

Sovello Hildebrand Mgani IT Consultant - FUGIT Consult Tanzania sovellohpmgani@gmail.com

Introductions

Open Source Software:

Distributed with its source code in a human readable format. Developed in an open and collaborative way by groups of developers FREE:

Free and Open Source Software

You can change the source code, redistribute and do anything with it. You don't pay for the software but you pay for the services to implement the software.

Therefore FREE IS NOT FREE

Advantages

Lower total cost of ownership

Licences: New and renewal Maintenance: develop your local support group Not a single source of solution in case of problem. You can become one of the solution providers. Many clones can be developed from one core engine Open standards, easier integration with other existing systems Providing consultancy to new users of a particular software

Reduced dependence over the vendors

Forking:

Transparency:

Anyone can make money using the existing software

Advantages (...)

Free to customize

Promote your brand: Customize the software and use your brand in the customized products Make it not 'like theirs': foster security. Not a single source of a solution in case of a problem. Anyone can help including communities, forums, etc. and of course free to discard

Large support base:

Freely available, free to share

Challenges

Getting the right software from among the many options. Not having the right expertise:

The danger of being wrongly advised

The 'core-developers' abandoning the development Changing licences to commercial:

e.g. Quanta Plus Microsoft products are at the ear of any computer user.

Fear of the Unknown:

Case Studies: Who uses OSS?

SOCREMO

Microfinance Bank in Mozambique Adopting an Open Source HRIS together with Open Sourse OS for all members of the ECOWAS.

WAHO: Western African Health Organization

Ministry of Regional Authorities and Local Government-Tanzania

Adopting an Open Source HRIS Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Youtube, Wikipedia

The Giants:

Who are you then not to use OSS?

More can be found here: http://www.mysql.com/customers/

Examples:

FreeAccounting (www.frontaccounting.com)

An Open Source Accounting Software with almost all accounting features and it is web based. A desktop accounting software A free Operating System e.g. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc

GNUCash:

Linux:

OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Mozilla Firefox,

Thank you for following up.

Open Source Software:

Give it a TRY, You won't go back to live THE OLD WAY AGAIN!