Red Hat Magazine is hot off the (electronic) presses, and this month’s issue features a cool article called “Open Source on the force: An officer speaks”. The article discusses a police officer who turned to a basic DOS solution on old hardware to solve a problem ten years ago, and has since discovered Linux and Open Source and has used them to extend the capabilities of his unit.

I like reading stories like this because I volunteer IT services to my local volunteer fire department. Whether we’re talking law enforcement or emergency services, I’d much rather see funding go toward equipment purchases and personnel training than license fees and expensive software packages.

My fire department runs Windows right now, partly because my fellow support tech is not familiar with Linux (yet) and partly because I was only just learning Linux when we built the department’s network. I’ve also had a hard time finding any National Fire Incident Reporting System — aka NFIRS — software for Linux/Unix that won’t break the bank. If anyone out there knows of a package, please drop me a line. Given some of the headaches we’ve been having — adware and spyware far from the least of them — I’d love to migrate some or all of our systems to Linux.

When all is said and done, though, what many fire departments need — particularly rural volunteer districts — is volunteers, regardless of what kind of systems they happen to be running. Groups like NPOTechs and the Red Hat Army of Friends are too few and far between.

If you’ve got some time to kill, drop by your local department and ask to speak to an officer. Chances are they’ll be happy to have you.