Free software: A review, in the context of disaster management <s> Criteria to select software for disaster management applications <s> Today many companies decide to select free/open source software (F/OSS) products for various reasons, for example, economical or quality reasons. For many areas of application, they can choose from a variety of packages provided by different communities. Introducing a software tool into a company—either for supporting a certain business process or for the development of its own products—may be more or less critical depending on the application, which may range from explorative to mission critical. ::: ::: One of the most crucial problems in the usage of F/OSS is the actual decision to use a particular product. Although this is rather similar to the usual investment decisions, the consequences of an involvement in a software project are frequently underestimated. Whether a certain package is appropriate for the intended purposes in the given environment and is suitable to the overall business goals of the company is usually not determined systematically, but often arbitrarily. However, many important hints resulting from the development context of an F/OSS product as well as other technical and economical considerations could be helpful to make the product decision process more transparent and deterministic. ::: ::: In this article, we give a systematic approach for supporting a decision to incorporate a particular F/OSS product into an enterprise. Systematic decision support is provided by a rational approach that facilitates evaluating and interpreting the relevant project circumstances of an F/OSS product to be chosen. By this means, F/OSS projects can be critically reviewed in the light of the particular product requirements of the choosing organisation. The article addresses software managers and engineers in industry and academia. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. <s> BIB001 </s> Free software: A review, in the context of disaster management <s> Criteria to select software for disaster management applications <s> Over the past few years the world of free and open source geospatial software has experienced some major changes. For instance, the website FreeGIS.org currently lists 330 GIS‐related projects. Besides the advent of new software projects and the growth of established projects, a new organisation known as the OSGeo Foundation has been established to offer a point of contact. This paper will give an overview on existing free and open source desktop GIS projects. To further the understanding of the open source software development, we give a brief explanation of associated terms and introduce the two most established software license types: the General Public License (GPL) and the Lesser General Public License (LGPL). After laying out the organisational structures, we describe the different desktop GIS software projects in terms of their main characteristics. Two main tables summarise information on the projects and functionality of the currently available software versions. Finally, the advantages and disad... <s> BIB002
Various authors have proposed evolution criteria for free GIS (e.g. BIB001  BIB002 ). Many FOSS4geoinfo software products can compete with proprietary software. Furthermore, in general, "open source software not only has better than average quality as compared to the industry average, but in fact continues to raise the bar on what is considered good quality software for the entire industry"  . Advice on selecting desktop PC software for disaster management is summarised in With Linux it is often faster to apply corrections provided by user-forums, than waiting for a new compiled version to be produced for Windows. In general, Linux should be considered as a primary operating system: it is freely available and tends to perform better on older hardware (which often predominates in LICs).