Briefing notes on the benefits of Free Software?

[MJ Ray]

Peter Lewis asked: [...]
> As a result, I've been asked to send them some information on Free /
> Open Source Software which will help to inform them in making
> decisions about their new strategy and procurement. So, can anyone
> recommend a good briefing note or two which would be suitable?
> Ideally it would be aimed at voluntary / public sector organisations
> in the UK and accessible by general management (not IT specialists),
> though other good materials would also be useful.

Great!  My fellow cooperators at Bristol Wireless co-ran a Social
Source conference a while ago which might have some useful info
http://www.bristolwireless.net/wiki/index.php/SocialSourceSouthWest
but I can't find any of the materials online.  I've just asked and
will feed back any reply.  Paul Webster has offered me his slides on
"implementation in the VCS" - can I forward them off-list if needed?

IMO, the big problem with promoting FOSS to the third sector is that
lots of UK government funding is wasted propping up a few hostile
organisations that claim to be agnostic and independent but have
entrenched legacy publishers as much as they can and excluded new
entrants from forums.  I lamented about that sort of thing at
http://www.news.software.coop/why-is-public-and-charity-money-paying-for-the-private-sectors-marketing/617/
back in April.  So well done for getting a vol org interested!

Most of the relevant funded FOSS-related publications like FOSS.CIAC
and FOSSVCS seem to have gone out-of-date and then offline, as is
usual for funded work which gets released various Non-Commercial and
No Derivative licences which make them hazardous or unusable to IT
support businesses.

http://www.iosn.net/publications/foss-primers seem OK for the public
sector, but maybe not great for the third sector.

If there's nothing out there and anyone has a bushel of funding,
I'm sure software.coop, BristolWireless, FossBox, maybe M6-IT (not
sure of its state) could start something sustainable.

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster and LMS developer at      | software
www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk        | .... co
IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op