Is Open Source Software Fair trade for nonprofits?

Are there ethical reasons for voluntary and community organisations to consider using Free and Open Source Software? Matthew Edmonson, who works for the UK Government-funded Open IT Up project, seemed to suggest so when speaking at the recent conference for circuit riders, who provide tech support to nonprofits. Matthew likened using proprietory software to preferring Nescafe when Fair trade coffee is available, and refers on his blog approvingly to a report of the phrase "increased effort for improved ethics". Matthew's main points at the conference were:

• FOSS has equivalences to Fair Trade
• FOSS is already widely used and should not be 'boxed off' as separate
• FOSS has much to offer the VCS (voluntary and community sector)
• FOSS has much to offer the CR (circuit rider)

The analogy provoked some discussion on the Circuit Riders mailing list, with one contributor saying:

I also agree fully with three of your proposed concepts about FOSS, but I have to part company with you about the fair trade one.  I write this as one who's been involved in my local Fairtrade borough campaign, and I've also lived in Tanzania and Bolivia, and have counted tea, coffee and cocoa growers as friends.  The defining characteristic of fair trade is that these growers, some of the poorest people on the planet, get a decent price for the goods that they produce.  That characteristic isn't really anything to do with FOSS, as far as I can see.

Another contributor responded:

I think that the main equivalence is for _us_, not the producers  - iow it's about thinking about your IT purchases as carefully, from  a moral pov, as you do your coffee, tea and cocoa purchases.

More at the list archive available here.
Although Matthew's analogy is mite provocative, I see it as part of an overall even-handed attempt to get some worthwhile discussion going on the pros and cons of proprietory software or FOSS. For example, there's also some discussion on the Open IT Up blog about the reasons for not using FOSS - what they call the "Yeah But's"
Matthew offers a download of his presentation CR_pres.odp, but only in the OpenOffice or NeoOffice format. That means you have first to download and install some 140 M of software before you can use view the slides. Hmm. It could have been saved in other common formats, so I hope this isn't going to be a general trend among FOSS evangelists.
Anyway, it is a useful presentation - including the image above - arguing Open Source Software should be considered as well as proprietary software when offering ICT solutions to groups in the voluntary community sector. Matthew says:

Circuit Riders should know FOSS because:-They
need to be vendor neutral.
Its fun and logical to use
Self training means that cost is not barrier to learning
Community of support
FOSS uptake is inevitable
Avoids Vendor Lock in

For an alternative approach see Miles Maier's Great Web Office Experiment for a so-far non-FOSS approach to free or low-cost software for nonprofits.
So - is using Open Source an ethical issue? Or should nonprofits take an eclectic approach, and just go for the software that works for them, whether Open Source or free/low-cost proprietory? Comments welcome here or, I'm sure, at Open IT Up, and thanks to Matthew for giving us an analogy plus image to get things going.

Comments

[Beth Kanter]

I'm so glad your summarized this conversation. I thought about doing so, but now I will point to it!

[Roberto Galoppini]

Educate people about open formats, as he did, makes perfect sense: users' data are a means to lock-in customers. ODP is part of the ODF standard, an ISO approved standard. Keep an eye on the subject, it will get hotter and hotter, and more and more proprietary vendors will be opening their formats..

[Paula]

Agree, the ethical dimension of FLOSS is as important as the ethical dimension of coffee. Initiatives such as the Brasilian government's free culture and open source projects: http://www.uke.hr/brazil/ http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0130-03.htm
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/linux.html or the WSFII's work enabling developing economies with DIY mesh networks:
http://wsfiiafrica2007.org/index.php?title=WSFII.Summit.2007.Program

Information technology is absolutely central to development agendas, I really don't understand why it wouldn't be treated as an ethical issue in the same way as coffee production or medicines etc.