[vox] [fwd] Nonprofits using Linux?]

[Bill Kendrick <nbMAPSs@sonic.net>]

Brian from SacLUG forwarded this to me a while back.
I don't believe I got around to forwarding it to VOX, so here it goes!

-bill!

----- Forwarded message from Anders Schneiderman <SCHNEIDA@seiu.org> -----

Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 09:00:54 -0400
From: "Anders Schneiderman" <SCHNEIDA@seiu.org>
To: <clz@sw.incantations.com>
Cc: <reubensilvers@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 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

----- End forwarded message -----
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