Accounting for Vendor Lock-in

"When you pick:

A closed solution
A non-open standard

In those cases you are risking vendor lock-in. And by doing so you are committing your company to either a perpetuity of lock-in, or to a future expensive remediation to restore your options to the point where you can make alternative choices. The smart way of doing this is to consider, in terms of analysis to aid decision making, the cost of lock-in up-front, as a deferred expense, a liability. When this is done you can more accurately make comparisons among available solutions, closed and open, knowing that you are fairly accounting for the true economic costs of each choice."

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2012/07/accounting-for-vendor-lock-in.html

Open Source Schools

"Open Source Schools is here to share information about open source software in schools. Our aim is to help you decide whether open source software might offer benefits for learning, teaching, engaging pupils and parents, managing information and resources, or school administration."

http://opensourceschools.org.uk/

Valkaama

"Valkaama is a collaborative Open Source Movie. "

http://www.valkaama.com/

"A Swedish poet, Lasse, has travelled around the world for years - alone, independently, restlessly. His heart knows no home except one that a prophecy from his childhood revealed to him: Valkaama, a mysterious place in northern Finland. [...]"

Morevna Project - Open Source Anime

"The main goal of Morevna Project is creation of full-lengthened anime movie, utilizing Open Source software only."

http://morevnaproject.org/about/

FOSS Wiki - Freeware and Open Source Software

"Founder, Stacy Reed: I made FOSSwiki because I needed a place to keep track of my favorite freeware applications. I've been an advocate for free and open source software for many years and I thought this would be a great resource for friends and family to find it all in one place."


http://foss.librarianchick.com/

UK: Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan

[Image: Internetnews]

Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan

"Re-use as a practical principle: Learning from others is a key aspect of the CIO Council’s operating principles. Where open source solutions are evaluated and approved by one part of Government, that evaluation should not be repeated but should be shared. To support this, Departments will keep and share records of their approval and use of open source, including open source components within composite solutions."

"Open Standards: The Government will specify requirements by reference to open standards and require compliance with open standards in solutions where feasible. It will support the use of Open Document Format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) as well as emerging open versions of previously proprietary standards (eg ISO 19005-1:2005 (“PDF”) and ISO/IEC 29500 (“Office Open XML formats”). It will work to ensure that government information is available in open formats, and it will make this a required standard for government websites."

Full announcement here:


http://www.cio.gov.uk/transformational_government/open_source/action.asp

Also reported as:

Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: UK Government Policy

"The U.K. government is stating that it can clearly see that Free Software development principles of cooperation and transparency are beneficial and save money, and the U.K. Government is stating that it wants more of that, in no uncertain terms, when it comes to the infrastructure that is now running the Country and on which its citizens now so critically depend. "


http://www.advogato.org/article/1002.html


Government promises more open-source use

"The UK government could save millions of pounds every year if it made more use of open source as part of a competitive procurement system."


http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39618454,00.htm


Government pushes open source with 10-point plan

"The key objectives are to ensure that the government adopts open standards and uses them to communicate with citizens and businesses that use open source systems."

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/02/25/235006/government-pushes-open-source-with-10-point-plan.htm


UK really gets FOSS

"In the Policy section, we read even better ideas. Infact we see an idea of calculating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to its logical conclusion.
Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfil minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements

To summarise:
TCO = license cost + (exit + transition) costs + security costs + transferable costs + support costs + manageability costs

This is where the real TCO of proprietary software will go sky high. For those vendors who love lock-ins, their exit/transition costs will be prohibitive. For those who have poor security or virus prone, you will be held accountable. Then for those suppliers who dictate user unfriendly EULAs which restrict transferability, well ... make it more consumer oriented, or die!"


http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2009/02/uk-really-gets-it.html



U.K. Throws Weight Behind Open Source

""Where there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products, open source will be selected on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility," the U.K.'s open source action plan states. "

http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/380686/UK+Throws+Weight+Behind+Open+Source.htm



U.K. Endorses OpenDocument Format

"The U.K. government is requiring compliance with open standards when feasible. It will work to ensure that government information is available in open formats and make open formats a required standard for government Web sites under its "Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: Government Action Plan." "


http://visualstudiomagazine.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=10644&rss=1

http://gcn.com/articles/2009/02/26/uk-endorses-odf.aspx


Government expands supports for ODF and open source software

""The fact that the UK government will use open standards in its procurement specifications and require solutions to comply with open standards, is a significant development that will ensure competition among multiple competing products on different platforms," said OpenForum Europe chief executive Graham Taylor."

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/02/26/235038/government-expands-supports-for-odf-and-open-source.htm

Vietnam to widely use open source software

"Accordingly, by June 30, 2009, 100% of clients of IT divisions of government agencies must be installed with open source software; 100% of staffs at these IT divisions must be trained in the use of these software products and at least 50% use them proficiently."

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2009/01/822425/


http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F07%2F1940248

NETGEAR Launches Open Source WGR614L Wireless-G Router

"NETGEAR launches Open Source edition of wireless-G router enabling Linux developers, geeks, hackers and enthusiasts to create Firmware for specialized applications"



http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/wgr614l-wireless-g-router.html

Free Open Source and Web-based Applications

"Free Open Source and Web-based Applications"http://opensourceresources.wikispaces.com/

Find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software

"Top ten Open Source
1. OpenOffice Draw
2. Dia
3. Gimpshop
4. InfraRecorder
5. Cinelerra
6. Quanta Plus
7. Partition Image
8. Avidemux
9. Kivio
10. Paint.NET"

http://www.osalt.com/

Software and Online Tools for Education

http://couros.wikispaces.com/tools

Open source project management app hits 500K downloads

"OpenProj replacement of commercial project management applications is highly disruptive for existing vendors and important to the entire industry," O'Brien says. OpenProj reads and opens Project files, a function that makes migrating from Project much easier, and OpenProj runs on Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OS.

http://www.linux.com/feature/138457

Open Forum Europe

"Welcome to OpenForum Europe. We are a not-for-profit, independent organisation launched in March 2002 to accelerate, broaden and strengthen the use of Open Source Software (OSS) in business and government. OFE pursues the vision of an open, competitive European IT market by 2010 in line with the European Commission i2010 Strategy with the mission of facilitating open competitive choice for IT users. OFE is supported by major IT suppliers and works closely with the European Commission and National Governments, both direct and via National Associates."

http://www.openforumeurope.org/

Halloween Document I (Version 1.17)

"Linux and other OSS advocates are making a progressively more credible argument that OSS software is at least as robust -- if not more -- than commercial alternatives. The Internet provides an ideal, high-visibility showcase for the OSS world."

http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html

Bristol City Council - Open Source

"Bristol City Council is leading work on Open Source Office Software, drawing on their experiences evaluating StarOffice (based on the Open Source OpenOffice.org), gathering a wide range of information to support their decision to adopt it, and implementing it across 5,500 desktop computers."

http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk/osacademy/our_partners/bristol-city-council/bristol-city-council

Schools set to go open source

“Too many people are listening to ‘experts’ with a vested interest in a particular commercial software model. It’s not just the operating system, it’s OpenOffice and all the supporting applications. All you pay for is genuine support and even a lot of that is free through the community groups. The emperor has no clothes, it’s as simple as that and Becta now realises it.”

http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2217224/schools-set-open-source-4017531

Open Source Will Quietly Take Over

"By 2012, more than 90 percent of enterprises will use open source in direct or embedded forms," predicts a Gartner report,

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/open-source-will-quietly-take-over.html

Open Source Software Saved Customers $60 Billion

"Open Source software is raising havoc throughout the software market. It is the ultimate in disruptive technology, and while to it is only 6% of estimated trillion dollars IT budgeted annually, it represents a real loss of $60 billion in annual revenues to software companies."

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/foss-costing-vendors-60-billion.html

SynergyMX - Freeware and Open Source Software

"Freeware Defined: Software application programs that are free to use and distribute. Often, these programs are written by home programmers and distributed via the Internet at no cost and no future obligation to buy.
Open Source Defined: In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available."

http://www.synergymx.com/foss_list.php

Open Source Resources

"Free and open source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (for Free/Libre/Open Source Software) is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. This approach has gained both momentum and acceptance as the potential benefits have been increasingly recognized by both individuals and corporate players.

'F/OSS' is an inclusive term generally synonymous with both free software and open source software which describe similar development models, but with differing cultures and philosophies. 'Free software' focuses on the philosophical freedoms it gives to users and 'open source' focuses on the perceived strengths of its peer-to-peer development model. However many people relate to both aspects and so 'F/OSS' is a term that can be used without particular bias towards either camp."

http://www.openden.com/index.php