Just read the new Open Source Primer from Nonprofit Open Source Initiative written by Michelle Murrain. The primer does an incredibly thorough and fair job of weighing the economic, temporal, and philosophical benefits of proprietary and open source software. It also documents case studies from front runners in open source software development and small nonprofits who are just starting to use Linux. My favorite passage:

Community ownership of software is also in itself consonant with the missions of many nonprofit organizations, whose role is in strengthening community. By using tools that are owned by everyone, you know that you aren’t building your work in a way that depends on or benefits any one corporation or institution, but building your work in a way that benefits everyone.

This is a well written and well researched opus that will benefit the nonprofit community hugely in the years to come. Bravo!

Cross-posted to my personal blog – Civil Disobedient