FOSS in Universities – vital to research!

So while working for the ASK-OSS research project, which is looking at the use of FOSS in Australian research and education, I keep coming across some absolute pearlers. The most recent was the FOSS policy put forward at Buffalo University in the US:

direct unmediated unfettered access to information is fundamental and essential to scholarly inquiry, academic dialog, research, the advancement of research methods, academic freedom, and freedom of speech

the free flow of information has for many years been hampered by incompatibilities between Microsoft software and non-Microsoft systems caused by Microsoft-specific modifications to open protocols (such as Kerberos[1]), document formats (such as HTML[2]), and programming languages (such as Java[3])

open-source software provides an alternative through whose use the core missions of the University at Buffalo can be preserved, nurtured, and enhanced

And so on and so forth. It makes for very interesting reading. I’ve also compiled in last months ASK-OSS newsletter the rationale of some well known Australian research projects about why they choose OSS. Check it out at the May Newsletter and join the newsletter for free (low traffic, very interesting!) if this sort of stuff is interesting to you 🙂