Why should you care about Open Source

My first live blog of the day is the panel "open source: why should I care". My goal of this panel is hopefully to find a silver bullet to convince my organization to use an open source CMS specifically Drupal, the CMS that powers this blog.

The question I hope to ask/get answered is: "I'm a web developed working for a non-profit. I'm looking to use an open source CMS, specifically drupal for our site, but I need to convince the directors, manger and content provider types that Open Source is the way to go. People that predisposed to assume that Microsoft Office is naturally better then Open Office because people are willing to pay for it. My question is, do you know a silver bullet to convince these types that Open Source is the way to go?"

We are about to start.

Interesting all ladies on this panel.

OpenSourceBlog.com

Basic open source terms and myths.

Definition: free redistribution, no restrictions.
www.opensource.org/docs/definitions.php

Licenses: GNU Public License, Mozilla Public License, BSD License

Software: Firefox, OpenOffice, Linux, BSD, WordPress, Apache, Rails, PHP.

-Updates more often because more people are working on it together. Madness or wisdom of crowds?
They are hierarchical

Leadership: Strategic Decisions
Maintainers: Direction for part of a project
Committers: Trusted community to actually modify code
Contributors: Submit to committers for review
Bug reporters
Users

There are people that have control, decided by who worked their way up from the bottom by proving them self.

Customer Support, where is it? The contributors are STILL users, they develop customer support as they go along, just like a coder will add comments into their docs. Friendly communities, cause they all started at the bottom with questions of their own. Need quality documentation.

Commercial Open Source, software is free but support and services you pay for, but only what you need. Plain language documentation, not usually technical jargon.

Security, does open source make it less secure. More secure because more people are looking at it as opposed to close source were less eyeballs are scouring the code.

Its not all free you do need someone who knows how to use the software. The free in free software is as in freedom not free beer. FLEXIBILITY.

I think I'm sitting next to lullabot, one of the brains behind drupal, got to give him my card

Philosophical reasons for using open source. We don't use Wal-Mart so why use Microsoft? Open-source developed don't have to give their baby back to a evil company.

Anita Borg Institute? I need a borg? RESISTANCE IF FUTILE.

What is the motivation of open source developers?
Yes there is money. Artists. DIGG reputations, people like to feel important. User it on a resume, look at what I'd do for free think about what I'd do if you pay me. Good place to learn, free tutors. Companies will actually hire people to contribute for an open source project, because a company has a vested interest in seeing an open source project succeed.

One guy said it was cheaper to just offer his product for free instead of try to enforce copyright laws or infringements.

A good panel.