Partnership Initiatives In Companies That Support OSS?

reptyle asks: "Over Xmas dinner, a friend of the family told us she was considering launching a partnership between her employer FNMA (colloquially known as Fannie Mae; they are a semi-private company that guarantees mortgages) and Microsoft to provide training and eventually, surplus hardware to private individuals and non-profit outfits. I lamented this choice and she suggested that I e-mail her names and URLs of companies as alternative recommendations. So far I have come up with: Debian, Red Hat (distributions), VA Linux, Penguin (hardware companies), and maybe a few non-profit advocacy groups, but I think the list is still a bit too short. I can't think of any other entities that might be appropriate so I figured I'd ask Slashdot readers for help in providing other organizations that I may have missed. I don't care whether the organization uses Linux or BSD, just as long as it's not a proprietary model."

Comments

It's the licensing and accounting hassles.

[hey!]

It all depends. Yes, for employment training your argument holds. But there are lots of other kinds of non-profit enterprises that need IT.

I know, I used to be IT director for a medium sized non-profit.

Commercial software creates a number of problems for underfunded non-profits. If you only have a few copies, then you have support and compatability issues with the old software.

If you get enough licenses to cover everyone, then you have to worry about depreciating the gift -- a process that has no financial benefits to the non-profit but is nonetheless required. We once got a in kind grant from Oracle that was going to, on the books, be worth 3/4 of a million. Great this year's statement, but a huge paper expense for several years following. We had to do a lot of creative accounting (and trimming of the gift) to make it work. Of course, this is all smoke and miirors, but it can affect your ability to raise funds. Snooty brahmin donors like charities that look fiscally sound (thus the rich charities get richer).

Then there's downstream upgrading costs. If I'm Microsoft and I give you a million dollars of software but don't let you upgrade free in perpetuity, I'm not being very charitable, am I? For a marginal cost of zero I guarantee a nice future annuity.

So how do you handle this with commercial software if you are a charity?

A fairly common practice in the charity sector is, I believe, to ignore licensing and EULAs and hope MS and SPA doesn't want the bad publiciity (I personally never counted on this -- there is no such thing as bad publicity for the SPA).

Free software eliminates legal risks, financial complications, and licensing hassles.

What's wrong with Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you may not like their software/business practices/leader or whatever, but for training people up to be able to use a computer for running charities or getting a job you'd be far better off teaching them how to use Windows/Word/Excel than some open source solution which is more difficult and less well supported.

It's sad to see that despite all the talk of using the right tool for the job when /bots talk about programming languages when it comes to operating systems they want to use open source wishware despite the fact that there are plenty of cases where using a Microsoft solution would be a better choice. Don't let your prejudice make these people's lives more difficult. And since Microsoft already do stuff like this, your case looks even more like open source ego stroking.

Zeal aside, Microsoft is the correct choice

[eXtro]

Saying that Microsoft isn't an appropriate choice stinks of zealousy rather than a valid argument. This may be shocking but trying to teach somebody word processing using MS Word on MS Windows is many times more likely to get them gainful employment then teaching them how to use AbiWord on Debian. The same goes for any other package.

When you walk in for one of these jobs they will (hopefully) test your familiarity with the applications they use. Do you know the applications well enough to get the job done with enough efficiency to justify some multiple of minimum wage.

There is no on the job training for word processing or image manipulation etc. You'll get 10 minutes of training on their filing system and thats it.

Charity and Open Source Software

[peterwayner]

I devoted one entire chapter in my book to the confluence of charity and open source software because it is so different from the way things are normally given away. Open source gives the software to everyone whether or not they fit some definition of charity. In the past, many businesses charge one price to one group and charge a different price to charities.

In theory, the business isn't really supposed to gain anything from the gift. They're only allowed to deduct the value of the gift. That means you can't give away a clunker automobile and take off the full price when it was new.

But determining the true value of intellectual property like software is impossible to do. All the costs lie in the creation and it costs almost nothing to give away a free copy.

So what amount does Microsoft take off its taxes when it gives away a copy of Windows to a non-profit? I don't know, but it could be larger than its real cost. I talked to a few tax lawyers in producing the book and they said there was no firm guidance from the government in the matter. It was possible that software companies were taking off the full list price for the product.

So, the point is that businesses can generate cash by giving away software to non-profits by writing off more than the cost of making the contribution. I'm not saying that Microsoft or anyone else is doing this, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone is suggesting it to them.

Unfortunately, the open source community loses in this structure. Of course, donations to Stallman's FSF seem to be tax deductable so maybe it all washes out in some strange way.