Presentation by Phil Shapiro - NetSquared DC meeting on August 21, 2012

1. Open Source Software
for Nonprofit Organizations
Phil Shapiro, Public Geek
Takoma Park Maryland Library
pshapiro@his.com
@philshapiro
August 21, 2012

2. Reasons for Using Open Source
Software
➲ Saves money
➲ Customizable
➲ Avoids costly upgrades and lock-in
➲ Consistent with nonprofit ethic of doing
more with less
➲ Runs better on older hardware
➲ Viruses almost non-existent on Linux
➲ Open source communities invite
participation in many different ways

3. Most Popular Open Source
Software Programs
➲ LibreOffice/OpenOffice
➲ Wordpress
➲ Drupal
➲ Linux
➲ GIMP – (Photoshop equivalent)
➲ Inkscape (Adobe Illustrator equivalent)
➲ Blender (3D modeling and animation)
➲ OpenShot (video editor)
➲ LightWorks (video editor)

4. Other Popular Open
Source Software Programs
➲ TuxPaint
➲ TuxType
➲ Audacity (sound recorder/editor)
➲ FileZilla (FTP program)
➲ Apache (the world's most popular web
server)

5. How to Learn to Use Open Source
Software
➲ Thousands of screencasts on YouTube.
Search for the name of the open source
program and the words “tutorial” or
“screencast” or “how to” or “lesson”
➲ Also, search Google. For example, search
for: Inkscape screencasts
➲ Freely usable, public domain SVG graphics
created with Inkscape can be found at
openclipart.org
➲ http://showmedo.com/

6. Create Your Own Screencasts
for Free
➲ Using Camstudio Open Source (Windows)
➲ (see article “CamStudio Tips for Teachers”
in PCWorld magazine
➲ GTK RecordMyDesktop (Linux)
➲ http://screencast-o-matic.com/ (Mac and
Windows)
➲ Use a USB microphone for clearest
sounding audio in your screencasts

7. Where to Learn about
Open Source Software
➲ Opensource.com
➲ Lxer.com
➲ Linux.com
➲ Ubuntu.com
➲ Search Twitter for: #opensource
➲ And the web sites of your favorite open
source programs

8. Exciting Recent Developments
in Open Source
➲ Red Hat Fedora 17 – with automatic
multistation support (allows several
keyboards, mice, monitors to share a single
computer – even on a Pentium IV
computer)
➲ LightWorks open source video editor (a
professional video editor – was used to
create many movies in the movie theaters,
including The King's Speech)

9. How to Advocate for Open
Source Software
➲ Find open source buddies and ask them to
show you things they love in the open
source programs they use
➲ Ask your local public libraries to start
teaching open source software trainings
➲ Tweet and retweet open source solutions
➲ Write blog posts for opensource.com
➲ Attendees meeting just like this one – and
offer to present when given a chance