[Foundation-l] Open source CRM needed for Wikimedia

[Jimmy Wales]

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> 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.

The one thing I would add to this is that in terms of running the actual
website, delivering the actual work to the end user, we should never run
anything other than fully free software.

Running back office operations may in some cases require a tradeoff...
in the case in question, as I understand it so far, SugarCRM is free
software except that the module for security is proprietary.  I have not
done any analysis yet to fully understand the status, so I am just
speaking here of the hypothetical case.

--Jimbo




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