Social Source South West - Feb 5th 2008
Social Source South West - St Werburghs Community Centre - Tuesday Feb 5th
Voscur are helping to organise an ICT Hub event in Bristol on February 5th early next year hosted by Bristol Wireless at the St Werburghs Community Centre to promote the benefits of using Free & Open Source software (FOSS) in your ICT strategy. It is aimed at voluntary sector groups across the South West of England. The day will include speakers from the National ICT Hub and Bristol City Council, workshops and demonstrations from Circuit Riders, organisations and companies already using or helping groups with implementing free software solutions from across the region nationally.
Attendance is free, but registration is necessary and the organisers are keen to make the event as relevant as possible to attendees, by tailoring the day to a non-technical audience, keen to make savings on software licensing and administration and ongoing support.
Why Use FOSS?
What Foss should I use?
Who should come to Social Source South West?
More Information
Why use FOSS?
Free and open source software is a different model of software development, one that the non-profit sector is just beginning to embrace. It has generally been the hobby of technical volunteers in the past, but as the software has matured, companies such as IBM, Sun, HP and major governments such as India and Brazil have adopted the model for their software needs, bringing it corporate respectability.
One key advantage for the voluntary sector of the open source model over the proprietary model is that there are no limits on copying it and no licensing worries with day to day use. Many large and medium-sized non-profits, such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, depend on FOSS. Some of the largest web services companies, such as Google, Yahoo and others completely rely on open source software for their infrastructure.
A lot of recent FOSS development has been aimed at low power consumption , making it a more environmentally attractive proposition. Much of it is designed to run on older hardware efficiently, getting new life out of old machines with the same productivity as the newer more expensive machines that Microsoft Vista needs to run on for example.
What Foss should I use?
The three biggest FOSS projects are the Linux operating system, the Open Office Suite and the Apache Web server. Linux is already considered superior to Microsoft Windows by most independent technical reviewers, in terms of security, stability, virus protection, adaptability for different purposes and of course, cost. The Open Office suite has been built on open standards that make it completely compatible with other suites, including Microsoft Office. The cost savings have convinced many companies and our own Bristol City Council to migrate to it. It may be quite soon that BCC will link funding of IT to the use of Open Source solutions. The Apache Web server supports over 70% of the worlds websites and growing. If you have a website the likelihood is you're already using it.
Who should come to Social Source South West?
If you're responsible for the IT within your office, either in a technical or managerial role, then we hope you will attend to learn about the growing alternatives to the commercial software upgrade treadmill. If you're a treasurer or finance worker, come and hear about the cost savings to be made, and see solutions in action in the workshops that can enhance productivity and lower support costs.
There will be opportunities to talk to organsitions already using FOSS, take away samples of free software to experiment with, meet with individuals and companies supporting FOSS and even take away a Bristol Wireless computer configured for exactly the jobs you want it to do!
Register now at http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/voscur/sssw
More information at
http://www.bristolwireless.net/wiki/index.php/SocialSourceSouthWest
or Download Flyer for Event