[lug] Nonprofits using Linux? (fwd)

[Nate Duehr]

Wayde, do you think he's interested in non-profits on BSD variants
also?  I'm involved in a number of those as well as Linux-based ones. 

I guess I'll just CC and ask.  :-)

Nate

On Wed, 2002-10-23 at 09:13, J. Wayde Allen wrote:
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 09:08:46 -0400
> From: Anders Schneiderman <SCHNEIDA at seiu.org>
> To: wallen at lug.boulder.co.us
> Cc: reubensilvers at yahoo.com
> Subject: Nonprofits using Linux?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I was wondering whether you could do me a favor.  I am a member of the
> Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI), and we are trying to put together
> a series of case studies of the experience of nonprofits with using Linux
> for their network.  The idea behind the study is that we want to show
> nonprofits that other people just like them have successfully (we hope!)  
> switched to Linux and give them an idea of what's involved pitfalls to
> avoid, etc.  Would you be willing to post our notice about the study,
> attached below, to your LUG's mailing list?  Also, do you have any
> suggestions about other folks I could talk to who might know of some good
> leads?
> 
> Thanks,
> Anders Schneiderman
> Nonprofit Open Source Initiative
> http://www.nosi.net
> 
> P.S. In case you're wondering, we've already tried posting to Slashdot but
> got rejected (they didn't say why).
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------
> Seeking Participants for Linux in Nonprofits Study 
> 
> The Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI) is developing case studies of
> nonprofit organizations that use Linux for their office network. We are
> looking for organizations with staffs of 15 people or more. If you work or
> volunteer for a nonprofit of that size, that uses Linux for networking
> (including file/print sharing, or as an email server), we are interested
> in interviewing you about your experience.
> 
> The idea behind the study is to convince more nonprofits to take a serious
> look at Linux. While many schools and government agencies are beginning to
> consider Linux as an option, awareness in the rest of the nonprofit
> sector, especially small-to-medium size organizations, remains very low.
> Given that these groups have very tight budgets and share the volunteer
> ethic of Open Source, you would think that Linux would be widespread among
> them. But so far nonprofits have been surprisingly reluctant to embrace
> Open Source. When it comes to technology, nonprofits tend to trail several
> years behind the for-profit world. Although many nonprofits use Apache,
> PHP, etc. for Web work, most treat the idea of Open Source in general and
> Linux in particular the same way businesses did several years ago. The
> fact that Open Source is now mainstream in the business world hasn't had
> much impact on the way nonprofits see it.
> 
> By doing this study, we hope to show nonprofits that other organizations
> just like theirs have used Linux to cut their total IT costs (including
> training and support) and to create networks they can really count on. We
> also hope to give them a better understanding of what it means to run
> Linux vs. Microsoft/Novell networks as well as the issues they need to
> think about and the pitfalls that they will want to avoid if they moved to
> Open Source on the back end.
> 
> If you think your organization would make a good case study, please fill
> out the survey that's available on the study's web page at
> http://www.nosi.net/tco.shtml. For more information on NOSI, please check
> out our web site at www.nosi.net.
> 
> Thanks, 
> Reuben Silvers 
> Anders Schneiderman 
> The Nonprofit Open Source Initiative 
> www.nosi.net
> 
> 
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