Free Software
For most small to medium sized Charities, IT means computers installed with Windows. This entails expensive and complicated licensing schemes, upgrading to the latest hardware just to keep in step and compatible with the latest software and problems that even Microsoft themselves don’t seem to be able to solve.
We at FreeCharity.org.uk believe that many charities could be better served through the use of what’s known as Free Software.
What is Free Software?
Free refers not to the price of the but to the freedoms given to the users of the software. Unlike the propriatory software that you may be used to running on your home PC and office systems, Free Software grants the user four specific freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
These four freedoms usually lead to the software being available at no cost, adaptable to your individual needs and bugs being found and fixed quickly. Reliable, quality software becomes available at little cost!
We also believe that these principles are more inline with the ideas of Charity than expensive, closed and propriatory software. Without it we would be unable to provide our services for no cost – we don’t have to worry about expensive, complicated software licensing schemes or the legal problems caused by adapting software to better fit our needs.