A fisherman in a developing country uses his cell phone to dial into a central location where data on the current prices of fish and quantities in each local market have been collected. Using this data a computer calculates which market is the best place for him to sell his fish that day, and the fisherman receives a text message with the information.
This broad sharing of information, unimaginable just a few decades ago, has been made possible by the internet and by the availability of inexpensive hardware and free software.
Cell phones are widely used in the developing world, as a cheaper alternative to installing phone lines in areas where there are none. By the end of 2008, about two-thirds of the mobile phones in use were in developing countries, according to a UN Report. The increasing use of free and open source software makes sophisticated computer use possible for organizations and individuals that would not be able to afford costly proprietary software.
Since 1991 when the release of the Linux operating system initiated the first wave of open source software use, the amount of open source software in circulation has skyrocketed. Firefox, the open source challenger to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser, has increased from an estimated 8% share of browser use in 2005 to a 25% share in November 2009.
Corporate use in the United States is increasing, but it is in the world of nonprofits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that open source software finds its ideological home. Mike Roman, operations manager at the San Francisco-based Aspiration, an organization dedicated to helping nonprofits develop their software capacity, describes the link between nonprofits and open source software as an “easy marriage,” He says, “It’s a logical mix: the software is free, and good things happen when its development is in the hands of the community.” He would like to see more use of open source in business, as well, but thinks the collaborative process that is at the heart of open source may be antithetical to its adoption by businesses, which by virtue of their competitive nature hold on to “the old way of thinking that my idea is my idea.”
Alameda, California, web consultant Jack Boeger used to run a corporate team using proprietary internet development software. When he decided to go out on his own, he opted for the open source content management system Drupal. Like many software developers, he’s a true believer; he describes Drupal as “the most sophisticated content management system on the planet.” He creates websites for businesses as well as nonprofits. In his view, corporations should seriously look at open source software. He says, “On a proprietary system, you can only do what it’s going to let you do,” while “the question with Drupal is never really ‘Can I do this?’ It’s ‘What works for our needs?’” Faced with a problem, he can consult with the large online Drupal community, which within days will have developed solutions. “When you’re in the open source world,” he says, “you can make the software do anything you want. The community wants to do it, because then they’ll have bragging rights.”
Another web developer who is a fan of Drupal is Omar Bickell, who works with the Montreal, Canada-based nonprofit Koumbit . The organization’s mission is to facilitate the technological autonomy of community groups in Quebec and internationally by encouraging the use of free and open source software and providing the groups with web and graphic design support services.
Koumbit is organized around the collaborative ideals central to the open source movement. “We’re structured kind of like a co-op, with horizontal management,” Bickell says. “We’re structuring ourselves to be empowering to those involved, and to be useful to society as well. We’re one of the few organizations that overlap between understanding technology and having a social mandate.”
When asked about the difficulties of setting up websites in developing countries, Bickell said, “You can do a website from anywhere. The most exciting apps today use cell phones and SMS [Short Message Service, the most widely used underlying technology for text messaging].” He then told the story of the fishermen.
Bickell was one of the attendees at the first Nonprofit Software Development Summit sponsored by the Aspiration group in Oakland, California in 2007. He praised the summit, saying, “The director brings together a really interesting mix of people, with a lot to share.” The group’s philosophy is similar to that of the Montreal organization: Aspiration’s mission as stated on its website is, “to connect nonprofits to software solutions that help them more effectively meet their missions of positive global change.”
The organization, founded in 2001, organizes “convergences” (loosely, conferences) and “sprints” (work meetings) throughout the world to facilitate group sharing of knowledge and software tools. It also publishes an online software directory, the Social Source Commons; provides software consulting to nonprofits; and operates the San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center, a workspace and training center “for organizations working with technology for social change in the Bay Area.”
Aspiration’s third annual Nonprofit Software Development Summit will take place this week, on November 18-20, 2009, at Preservation Park in Oakland, bringing together people and organizations developing software tools and other technology to support social justice causes.
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Questions for Jack Boeger, supercleanweb.com
- Where does your url come from? Is “supercleanweb” is about search engine optimization?
- Why do you use Drupal rather than another CMS?
- Things I’ve been reading about Open Source often talk about it for nonprofits, but on your website are a lot of corporations that use it. Why would someone choose NOT to use Open Source now?
- How much web/computer knowledge would a person need to set up a system using Drupal?
- I like drop-down menus on top, but you don’t seem to use them in what I saw. Any reason? Can Drupal support them?
- If you weren’t using Drupal, what would you be using?
Questions for Aspiration – Allen Gunn, press@aspirationtech.org
(Unable to contact Gunn, who was out of the country. Talked with Operations Mgr Mike Roman instead)
- Whom, and how many people, do you expect at next week’s Nonprofit Software Development Summit?
- Is the organization involved in other activities in addition to organizing conferences?
- How did Aspiration come about?
- How does Aspiration fit into the overall picture of nonprofit software organizations?
- There’s a large literature on nonprofits and Open Source software. What about corporations? Is there a difference between technology for nonprofits and technology for corporations?
- It seems Drupal takes tech support for setup. How do you do this in the Third World? Or what do you recommend for NGOs in the Third World?
- Wikipedia mentions the UN Global Desktop Project, which “aims to build a desktop interface that every end-user is able to understand and interact with, thus crossing language and cultural barriers.” Are you involved in this? What do you think about it?
- Salesforce Foundation is often mentioned in open source articles. How do they fit in?
- Anyone else I should talk to?
Questions for Koumbit.org – Omar Bickell, omar@koumbit.org,
- What year were you at the Oakland Software Development Summit?
- What did you think of it? What did you get out of it?
- Wikipedia mentions a controversy about “free” vs. “open source” software. What is the difference?
- Tell me about Koumbit. How did it come about, & how does it fit into the overall picture of nonprofit software organizations?
- You’re using Drupal, which from what I read requires a developer to know php – right? Are there other good free or cheap cms’s that are easier to set up and nearly as good?
- It seems Drupal takes tech support for setup. How do you do this in the Third World? Or what do you recommend for NGOs in the Third World?
Facts I checked were:
- All name and url spellings
- Acronyms
- Date of Linux release
- Statistics on Firefox share of market
- Cell phone use statistics re developing world
- Mission statements of nonprofits discussed
- Date and location of Nonprofit Software Development Summit
Possible online extras:
- Map and directions to Nonprofit Software Development Summit
- Definitions of free vs. open source software, and links to the debates about these
- World map showing cell phone penetration in various countries
- Links to information about Drupal, comparisons of various open source packages
- Video excerpt from last year’s conference
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