Open source and non-profits
May 14th, 2007
Most leaders of non-profit organizations would intuitively understand why using say, recycled paper is a natural fit with their organization’s spirit, even if it has nothing to do with their mission directly. Here’s two representative comments on why non-profit organizations should support green technology and awareness:
“Nonprofit organizations are natural laboratories for learning, testing new ways to serve constituents, and modeling new approaches to existing problems. This is especially true of museums. As places of preservation and active learning, they are particularly well-suited to modeling “green” behavior and design for the public.” – Sarah S. Brophy
“Regardless of your non-profit’s purpose, your organization can probably afford to be a little greener. Being environmentally friendly is beneficial in several ways:
- It helps your organization be a good steward in your community and in the world
- It can make your organization more appealing to potential donors
- It enables your organization to help ensure that future generations can enjoy a respectable quality of life.
- While some green measures are costly, many are not – and some can even save or make money.” – Estela Kennen
The key points here are that a non-profit should be a natural laboratory for learning and it should be a good steward in its community and in the world. A non-profit lives via support from the community within which it exists, and it has a moral imperative not only to fulfill its specific mission but also to give back to the greater community in any way it can, but especially in ways that support mutual growth.
Open source software is a perfect fit for non-profits in exactly the same way that green technology is. Some people associate open source with no-cost and therefore low quality, but nothing could be further from the truth. Open source software is community created software. It is a gift to the world from a (sometimes small, sometimes quite large) community of programmers, who believe that by sharing and cooperating they can produce a better working environment for everyone, themselves included. What could be more in alignment with the spirit of most non-profits?
To quote opensource.org, open source “is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”
Some non-profits resist moving to open source software because they are naturally conservative and want to stick with the tried and true. But open source has been around for a generation now, and even some of the big software companies such as IBM, Apple, Novell and Sun have begun to find ways to support it.
What’s more, if the mission of your organization is in some way to change the world for the better, then what could make more sense than to align with and support the efforts of other communities who are also working to change the world for the better. After all, creating change may involve embracing change!
TATWD? WTF?
January 3rd, 2007
“The world rests on the back of a giant turtle.” What does the turtle stand on? “Another turtle.” What does that turtle stand on? “It’s just turtles all the way down!”
If you Google the phrase, you get a lot of references to Stephen Hawking and Bertrand Russell. Great men these may be, but I find the setting up of a straw man by reasoning from a literal interpretation of a mystical concept a bit silly, and strangely akin to the claim some folks make to a belief in a “literal” interpretation of the (old English translation of the Latin translation of the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic) bible. But then, science as an intolerant religion, and what it means to be truly rational… that’s a whole ‘nother post.
Dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find references to John Grinder and Gregory Bateson. Now you’re getting closer to what I mean. There is something deeply moving in the contemplation of infinite recursion. It is one way to come face to face with a mystery, that everything is a construct of my consciousness except right here, right now. That I don’t know where my consciousness came from, that it seems to stand on the back of the previous moment’s consciousness, which stands on the back…
“This statement is false.” Suppose that the preceeding statement is true, then it can’t be true because it says that it is false. OK then, supposing it is false, then it must be true because it says that it is false. While you’re thinking about that, someone kicks you in the shins.
Here’s a couple of quotes1 from the truly mystical mathematician G. Spencer Brown:
“A mystic, if there is such a person, is not a person to whom everything is mysterious. He is a person to whom everything is perfectly plain.”
“Those of us who have gone back and remembered our births, remembered what we knew, and remembered the covenant we then made with those standing around our cradle, the realization that we now have to forget everything and live a life…”
