I have to agree with much of what Erik is saying here as well. The key statement for me is "there are of course areas where open source software cannot (yet) compete." In response the software package being examined is the most open of those available which meets the Foundation's specific needs. For those who are not in the know, these needs are threefold: 1) donor management, 2) press management, and 3) volunteer management (i.e., building a database of volunteers with specific skills and circumstances, who can respond to specific tasks, such as a request to interview someone who specializes in classical music, or someone who has a flatbed scanner at home). Other needs will likely be identified over time as well. We need a package that can handle all of the above--the package being examined can do that--and it is generally open source. In fact, the propritary part is the privacy component, which means that confidential information about donors and volunteers will not be accessible to anyone with an internet connection. I do not think it lies within the scope of our mission to provide financial support for the development of free software alternatives, but I generally accept Erik's other points, particularly that a partially proprietary solution is preferable to a fully proprietary one. I would add, however, that we should not compromise on the quality of our solutions. Danny In a message dated 6/25/2006 12:58:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time, eloquence(a)gmail.com writes: I won't comment on the specific question, but on the underlying Wikimedia policy issue. The Board can decide the policy for software use by the Foundation. What would a sensible policy look like? I think an a priori "open source[*] only" policy is problematic since there are of course areas where open source software cannot (yet) compete. For instance, I'm not aware of a professional open source optical character recognition (OCR) solution, which is crucial for digitization. However, we do need to be aware of the risks of proprietary software: vendor lock-in, company bankruptcy, no code availability for security auditing, and so on. Aside from that, supporting open source is an important matter of outside perception for the Foundation. How about a policy that states: - when no adequate (as determined by its prospective users) 100% free software solution for a task can be found, a proprietary solution may be used. - such use needs to be reported and documented in a list of proprietary software used by the Foundation, so that the decision can be debated and challenged by the community. - in such cases, a partially proprietary solution is preferable to a fully proprietary one. - a migration plan should be made as soon as a realistic fully open source alternative emerges. - the Foundation should, within its budget, support the development of such an alternative. Does that make sense? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l