FLOSSAdvocacy

FLOSS Business Curriculum | Blog


 * To governments
 * To businesses
 * To academic institutions
 * To your organisation
 * etc.

=Introduction=

FLOSS advocacy may be done from the ethical standpoint of free software or the pragmatic standpoint of open source software. In practice, both perspectives may be presented with the emphasis determined according to audience. For example, the ethical perspective should appeal to NGOs, governments and educational institutions, while the pragmatic perspective of open source will appeal to businesses.

=General Principles=


 * Know what you are talking about
 * Present a clear rationale supported by facts
 * Understand the context
 * Approach the right people (e.g. within an organisation or institution)
 * Top-down
 * Bottom-up
 * Both
 * Approach them in the right way
 * Some are looking for pragmatic solutions and approaches
 * Others may be more interested in transparency and ethics ...
 * Be respectful
 * Tailor the pitch for the specific audience
 * Talk about benefits rather than floss features
 * Tell stories - what FLOSS means in practical terms for people - (life-changing) opportunities
 * examples of what people have been able to do by exercising their freedom to learn, contribute, participate, share, ...
 * Present demos.

=Levels of Advocacy=


 * bottom-up
 * demonstrate the benefits
 * top-down
 * educate and grow leadership
 * as an outsider
 * be provocative
 * alternative views

=Specifics=


 * Find prominent examples, analyse their motivations, showcase success stories describing the challenges they faced and how they overcame obstacles. What were the success factors?
 * Free Software Case Studies

=Demos=


 * Live distros.
 * Virtualisation to demo multiple distros on one session - demonstrating choice and features.
 * If using a projector during the demo, test it with your system in advance.

=Issues=


 * Organisational culture
 * Change management
 * MySQL and Oracle
 * Some critics say that a low percentage of libre software projects are successful. But how do they measure success? In many cases a project is successful if the software was useful for a time, to at least a few people, and that the participants learned something which was carried forward in their future work. Becoming a monopoly (for example) is not an indicator of "success".

=Resources=

Eventually these could be split onto separate pages.


 * VALO-CD: FLOSS which runs on Windows on a single CD, so that installing them is as easy as possible - useful for introducing users to FLOSS.
 * Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi talks Open Source and Open Standards at the Opening of Idlelo

Public Sector

 * Peru answers MS FUD

Private Sector

 * General Letter Requesting Free/Open Formats

Civil Society

 * Social Source Commons

Education

 * WikiEducator and Libre Software
 * Free Software and Education

General

 * Prominent Organisations:
 * Free Software Foundation
 * Free Software Foundation Europe
 * Advocacy wiki
 * Open Source Initiative


 * Software:
 * Open Source Alternatives (OSALT)
 * free alternative software
 * List of free and open source software packages (Wikipedia)
 * The Free Software Directory
 * UNESCO Free Software Portal
 * OpenEMR - The OpenEMR Documentation Wiki - Open medical records and practice.


 * FLOSS Migration
 * Open Source Migration Checklist



=Links=


 * Effective Free Software advocacy
 * Open Source Case for Business
 * Linux Advocacy mini-HOWTO
 * Open Source Advocacy (on Wikipedia)
 * Sowing the Seeds of Open Source Advocacy
 * About FLOSS
 * Free and Open Source Software and Open Standards in South Africa: A Critical Issue for Addressing the Digital Divide
 * FOSS Documents (South Africa)
 * Open Source Alternatives
 * Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers! - David A. Wheeler. Revised as of April 16, 2007