Should your firm be FLOSSing?
The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) had no problem going against the grain when it decided to forgo the widely used Microsoft Office suite of business applications. Instead, it chose to replace its aging WordPerfect installations with OpenOffice.org - for free.
Yes, there was a clear financial motive: By steering clear of Office 2007 and installing OpenOffice.org for its 100-plus users, the CLC saved an estimated $60,000 in licensing fees. "But it's not just about the money," says Andrew Southworth, the network technician responsible for all IT services at the CLC. In fact, says Mr. Southworth, the philosophy and principles behind open source software also struck a chord with the CLC and aligns with its community-based activities.
Free/libre/open-source software (FLOSS) - or simply "open source software" - has long since evolved beyond a grassroots social movement started by idealistic software programmers who refer to large proprietary software makers collectively as "The Man." But are companies any more willing to adopt open source software nowadays than they were a decade ago?
To proponents of open source, it's not just about the source code that's freely available to the general public. For many adopters, it's about freedom.
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