Letters to the editor

"Foundational software" and Free Software

Hi,
 
I have become aware of some nonprofit organizations which are not only
rejecting Linux, but standardizing on the entire Microsoft stack -- Windows
Server, Exchange Server, Office, Outlook, SQL Server, etc -- all because of
one class of software: "Foundational software."
 
This software runs the entire database structure of the organization and has
special features for donor management and other things they need. One of
these products is Navigator by Serenic, which seems to be one of the more
popular, but there are others.
 
Obviously, something is very wrong here. Free Software is supposed to benefit
nonprofit organizations even more than businesses because, hypothetically,
they have less money for software.
 
I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand exactly what this software
does -- I have never set it up nor used it. But apparently it ties together
all the Microsoft servers and applications in a way that makes things easy
for these organizations.
 
My question, to which I would welcome answers in talkbacks, is do we have
members of the Free Software community who use and understand this software,
and what can be done about it?
 
I would not necessarily argue that said software *must* be Free Software, but
we do need to have a reasonable solution that ties together the similar Free
applications. If it itself is Free Software, fine.
 
One project that has shown some promise is GNU Enterprise (
http://www.gnuenterprise.org ), but its progress seems slow right now.
 
In any case, a project to implement this class of software with Free tools
seems a necessary step to achieving World Domination.
 
Micah

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