OSNews: Will Open Source Come to the Rescue?

“Over the past months we have heard about how free and open
source software (FOSS) is becoming more and more acceptable in the
business community. There has also been a movement to have
governments adopt policies that open the door to FOSS. However, it
appears that the open source community has overlooked one vital
area of the community that would most likely embrace FOSS with open
arms, and that is the area of emergency services (Police, Fire and
Emergency Medical Services).

“Like any government agency, emergency service agencies need the
basic office software, but they also need ‘specialized’ software,
such as Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems, 9-1-1 Call Taking
systems, incident reporting systems, etc. Today, almost without
exception, every agency is forced to use a proprietary, closed
source Windows program…”

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