| Published by NetAction | Issue No. 86 | August 14, 2002 |
|---|
In a recent white paper, NetAction predicted that the four remaining regional Bell phone monopolies would find it increasingly difficult to repay their collective $135 billion debt as their revenue stream from traditional telephone services eroded in response to the growing availability of alternative networks and technologies. As financial problems continue to plague the entire U.S. telecommunications industry, the future of the four remaining Bell monopoly phone companies grows increasingly uncertain.
But the Bells retain monopoly control of crucial communications facilities,
including the "last-mile" connection between the telecommunications
network and nearly all homes and businesses. What becomes of the telephone network
is important because: 1) the communications network is an important element
of our social fabric, and 2) the Bells control one of the two major broadband
Internet access technologies (digital subscriber line service, or DSL).
In a new white paper, "The World
Beyond the Bells," NetAction advisory board member Judi Clark describes
how current and perceived threats to the stability of the telecommunications
network are causing an ad hoc social movement to emerge. New wireless technologies
are evolving to empower this social movement, which in turn is challenging the
monopoly power of the Bells.
The third in NetAction's "Networks for
the Future" project, "The World Beyond the Bells" examines
the many factors that will affect the uses and successes of these new technologies,
and the opportunities that will arise if competition is allowed to thrive in
the telecommunications marketplace.
Editor's Note: Former NetAction intern Theresa Chen wrote the following article after attending the Third Annual "Grassroots Use of the Internet" conference held earlier this summer at Yale University.
Earlier this year, the Third Annual "Grassroots Use of the Internet"
conference united over 115 activists and technological professionals at Yale
University to discuss the utilization of technology in the nonprofit sector.
The Organizers' Collaborative, a nonprofit membership organization of technically-oriented
grassroots activists, and the Double Bottom Line, an organization of Yale
University students interested in the public and nonprofit sectors, co-sponsored
the conference.
The day-long conference featured workshops and case studies on technology
planning, funding issues, and innovative approaches to cyber-activism. Two
sessions of particular interest fell under the "Free Software/Open Source"
category. The presenters, Phil Glaser of Sustainable Software Solutions, LLC,
and Reuben Silvers of the Nonprofit Open-Source Initiative, discussed the
role of the often-overlooked open-source solution in the nonprofit sector.
What is "open-source"? Every piece of software, from a basic word
processing program to a complex operating system, runs on programmed directions,
called "source code," or just "source" for short. Software
companies often copyright their source code, making it proprietary and unavailable
to the public. With open-source software, however, the source code is completely
accessible; anyone may view, download, comment on or suggest modifications
at any time. Popular examples of open-source software include the Linux
operating system, the Mozilla web browser,
and the Zope content management system.
Open-source software has many benefits over proprietary software, especially
for the nonprofit sector. Proprietary software may cost hundreds or thousands
of dollars; maintenance, upgrades, support, and additional licenses add further
costs. Most open-source software is free or very low-cost - good news to nonprofits,
for which funding always an important issue. Most documentation and support
for open-source software is also free, available through websites, newsgroups,
and mailing lists (though some support, such as Redhat's support for its version
of Linux, has some cost.)
The most popular open-source projects - those with a few years of history
behind them, such as Linux - may be more stable, secure, and reliable than
their proprietary counterparts. At the conference, Reuben Silvers, co-founder
of the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI), cited a study by Bloor Research
that compared the number of times that Linux and Windows NT crashed on the
same Pentium machine over the course of a year. Linux crashed once; Windows
NT crashed 68 times.
Users of proprietary software often have to wait for a new version release
before the problems with the software are resolved. With the popular open-source
projects, however, many different programmers around the world work on the
project simultaneously, allowing bugs to be addressed within a matter of days.
Since many of the testers are also programmers who may fix the bugs that they
discover, open-source software is continually subjected to "peer review,"
much as scientists continually review each others' work.
In addition to both affordability and functionality, open-source software
shares many of the same principles of the nonprofit sector - even often sharing
the ".org" domain. As Silvers explained, both open-source software
and nonprofits are "built on volunteerism" and the spirit of cooperating
to create a product for the greater good.
In spite of all the benefits, nonprofits have been slow to jump on the open-source
bandwagon. Many nonprofits are unaware that the open-source alternative even
exists. Those that are aware of it find the learning curve and the retraining
daunting. Staff in the nonprofit sector are often behind the for-profit sector
in technical skills, and are accustomed to popular proprietary options such
as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Open-source software also has problems with compatibility. OpenOffice
and AbiWord, for example, come very
close to emulating Microsoft Word's document format, but still have problems
displaying tables.
Finally, nonprofit organizations sometimes require specialized third-party
software that only runs with certain proprietary software. For example, housing
nonprofits often require specialized property management packages - projects
too large for a consultant and too specialized to generate enough interest
in the open-source community. Due to Microsoft Windows' market dominance,
corporations develop this specialized software usually only for Windows, and
sometimes Macintosh, but rarely UNIX or other platforms. A housing nonprofit
utilizing a property management package would then be locked in to using Microsoft
Windows, rather than looking at Linux or other open-source operating systems.
The two presentations at the conference on open-source software explored ways
for nonprofits to overcome these obstacles. Silvers took a "big picture"
view, educating his audience on the pros and cons of open-source, and the
possible roles that it might take in nonprofits. Silvers also introduced the
Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI),
an organization that he co-founded in 2001 that helps nonprofits to benefit
from open-source.
Silvers' presentation evolved into a broader discussion of the direction that
open-source activists should take in the nonprofit sector - such as whether
groups such as NOSI should focus on programming open-source software for the
nonprofit sector, or instead provide training, support, and documentation
for nonprofits that seek to incorporate open-source into their technology
plan.
In his presentation, Phil Glaser, Principal and Software Architect of
Sustainable Software Solutions, LLC, chose another perspective, demonstrating
how a particular piece of open-source software could function in a nonprofit.
Glaser first explained the use of different open-source collaboration tools,
including groupware, which allows groups of people to share tasks, to-do lists,
calendars, contacts, and other information, with different permissions for
different people. (Microsoft Outlook is an example of a proprietary groupware
solution.)
Glaser demonstrated phpGroupware,
a free, open-source option. Because phpGroupware is web-based, users and administrators
need nothing more than an Internet browser to gain access to the software.
As a web-based solution, phpGroupware cuts out licensing fees and any worries
about platform compatibility.
Silvers' and Glaser's presentations also demonstrated possible solutions for
nonprofits seeking to incorporate open-source software into the organization.
As Silvers mentioned, many small enterprises begin the incorporation of open-source
into their systems in the back end - with file sharing, web serving, and database
management - rather than implementing it on desktop PCs for the end user.
Implementing open-source on the back end rather than on a user's desktop gives
a nonprofit many of the major benefits of open-source, without requiring significant
retraining.
Glaser's presentation also emphasized that open-source software need not be
UNIX-based. Many popular open-source programs, such as OpenOffice, AbiWord,
and Mozilla, run on Windows and Macintosh systems, in addition to various
UNIX platforms. These programs are so well-developed and so similar to the
proprietary interfaces that users are used to that their transition to open-source
would not be difficult at all. (See examples
and a side-by-side comparison.)
As Silvers and Glaser explained in their presentations, the low cost, high
stability, and high security are reasons enough to encourage an organization
to choose open-source software. The spirit and the ideals of open-source,
however, make it even more attractive to nonprofits. While nonprofits have
overlooked it in the past because of potential difficulties with training
and compatibility, the open-source solution has matured to become a viable
and powerful alternative to proprietary software.
For more information see:
The author thanks Phil Glaser, Reuben Silvers, Calvin Lin and Shankar Rao for their help with this article.
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