Open Source Nonprofit Software

A grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development’s (DEED) Job Skills Partnership will be used to help several Minnesota businesses train workers to use open-source development code. The $171k grant will go to six local businesses, part of the Open Source Consortium, to fund training courses for software engineers, programmers, and other IT professionals being developed by Hennepin Technical College.

For nonprofit open source software, call MPower at 972-220-0340.

According to Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, free open-source software (FOSS) is a bigger threat to Microsoft’s business model than Google is. Though competition between the two hugely successful technological behemoths is fierce, particularly in the wake of the failed Microsoft-Yahoo takeover negotiations.

However, says Ozzie, open-source software is a much more serious potential danger to Microsoft than Google is. He cited several changes to Microsoft’s business strategies, including an increased focus on interoperability, as evidence of how the company is adapting to meet this threat.

Open-source software is changing the way we communicate, fundraise, and even the way we live. For nonprofit open-source software for your needs, call MPower at 972-220-0340 today.

Microsoft recently developed an open-source tool that is capable of translating Word documents into a “talking” book format.  This tool was created in a project involving Sonata software and the Digital Accessible Information System (Daisy) consortium.  By translating OOXML files into Daisy format, other software programs such as Book Wizard Producer can read the documents aloud.   This open-source tool is expected to help the visually impaired population of the world, which currently numbers around 160 million.

Daisy files differ from their well known counterpart, mp3’s.  With mp3 files, the user can only move between tracks.  Contrastingly, in Daisy files, the listener can perform many actions similar to reading a book, such as hearing the table of contents or skipping to a particular page.

If you are interested in Open Source Nonprofit Software, the developers at Mpower Open can help.  Contact them today at 972.220.0340 to learn more.

According to an exhaustive analysis of over 250 of the most popular open source software projects, the security of these widely-used programs and applications has made rapid improvements in recent years. Coverity’s Scan Report on Open Source Software 2008 and discovered the elimination of over 8,500 software defects within the last two years.

To date, the Coverity team has reviewed nearly 10 billion lines of code as part of the US government-sponsored Open Source Hardening Project.

To learn more about the benefits of nonprofit open source software, call MPower at 972-220-0340 today.

OpenLogic, a vendor of tools and services for managing open source software deployments, has created an automated census tool called OSS Discovery for use in a survey to measure the worldwide implementation of open source software.  Beginning on April 16, 2008, companies can use OSS Discovery to scan their computers and anonymously upload the data to the census site.  For companies that participate in the study, reports are available regarding their own systems, as well as similar companies’ programs.  Compiled data, not linkable to any specific company, will also be available on the census website.

Potential ways to sort the data according to OpenLogic include charting respondents’ countries, the popularity of various Linux distributions, and discerning the most used open source software packages.  A benefit of scanning computers, rather than personally polling respondents, is that data obtained is more complete and not subject to human error.  Most participants are only familiar with a particular portion of their company’s software use, leading to incomplete data.

Open source software provides cost effective and superior solutions for your business needs.  If you are interested in learning more, the developers at Mpower Open can help at 800.562.5150.