ICT hub to cut funding for open source software in voluntary sector

Howard Lake | 13 April 2007 | Blogs

Every now and again one comes across an example of retrograde steps in the voluntary sector. The ICT Hub is taking one right now: according to Charity Finance magazine, “the ICT Hub is to cut funding for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the voluntary sector during the next round of spending, citing a lack of interest.”
Open Source Software is an essential element for the future development of the voluntary sector. It provides a valuable alternative or addition to the existing standard commercial software packages.
Web 2.0 developments alone have shown what Open Source can achieve and what it offers to charities – blogs, content management systems (Oxfam UK and Greenpeace International are both moving to Drupal, the same content management system selected by UK Fundraising to run this site), wikis, and podcasting are all underpinned by Open Source and their value to charities is considerable.
So, while the commercial and public sectors explore and embrace the possibilities of Open Source, the voluntary sector gets reduced support for it from one of the key providers.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.