Free software

Your challenge

You or your partners have limited means. However you want to equip computers with quality software, while respecting the law on copyright. You enjoy the network of free knowledge sharing.

Our response and our reasons

For the definition of free software, please look at the article in Wikipedia.

We encourage the use of free software for the following reasons:

Social and ethical reasons
Open Source software fits the values of CTS:
access for the poor to information technology (IT), community empowerment as regards IT, sharing of knowledge and fairer sharing of computing development costs.

CTS encourages the use of open file formats, these ensure a certain independence from suppliers
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in).

Using open source software allows users to benefit from IT while respecting copyright  legislation. This also applies to other content types (images, documents, etc.)

Economic reasons
Open source software saves money, both via reduced license costs and because it enables reuse of older hardware. But even in cases where savings are offset by additional costs of training in the use of new software, the money spent is for the most part in a local economic circuit. This aspect is consistent with the fundamental values of CTS "manage resources".

Do not hesitate to contact us for fuller advice on this subject.