On 18 April 2012 15:10, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 18 April 2012 15:02, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 17/04/12 23:19, James Farrar wrote:
It's also worth noting that promotion of open-source software is not an Object of the charity.
The "ethos" of open source goes with open knowledge and open formats in my mind.
I think James has a good point. See
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Publications/cc10.aspx#h1
Esp. the charity "is independent and recognises that it exists to pursue its own purposes and not to carry out the policies or directions of any other body."
Yes, it is a good point. We shouldn't be making ideological decisions unless they do actually further our objects. I think we can justify our policy of using FOSS whenever there isn't a strong reason not to, though, since supporting FOSS has knock-on benefits for open knowledge (more relevant is open formats rather than open source, but in reality they are closely linked - even when closed source software uses open formats they tend not to do it quite as openly as we would like).