What's preventing your organization from using Free/Open Source Software today?
It’s 2014, and even your parents have heard the terms “open source” and “linux”. Your project dutifully releases source code and contributes to the community, but you’re still dependent upon proprietary software, even when perfectly good FOSS alternatives exist.
If there’s an open alternative, why aren’t you using it? As a project, what specific actions can you take to help other FOSS projects escape proprietary software and use your software instead?
This year at LibrePlanet, I asked the question “Why are so many Free Software projects, the non-profits behind these projects, and other, FOSS-friendly organizations resorting to proprietary software for their technical needs?” Though there are a number of reasons and explanations, in many cases it boils down to a simple answer: “We used what we knew.”
Replacing closed-source software with FOSS alternatives doesn’t have to be painful, and sometimes perceived barriers to adoption are based on old information, outdated software, and misconceptions. In this talk, I’ll share insights I’ve gained from discussing and helping organizations and projects with their own migrations. Topics will include:
- Discovering which projects can serve your needs and which projects could benefit from your tools
- Building a positive relationship between projects from scratch
- Identifying barriers to migration and routing around them
- The benefits of helping other projects migrate to and effectively use your software
- Beyond dogfooding: Future collaboration between projects
