Why Open Source?

Our HR database is made available free of charge under an open source licence. We are sometimes asked why we chose this route.

Our Customer's Perspective

Open source software provides cost effective software that is free from the risks associated with traditionally licenced software.

Legacy software has the inherent risk of being tied to a vendor and may not contain the features you need. With open source software, anyone is free to download the source code and make the changes they need.

Open source software attracts a community of people prepared to develop and improve the software for their own benefit and the benefit of their community. Open source software communities are typically active in providing language translations, solutions to problems and ideas for future development.

Most importantly, anyone is free to try the software and evaluate how it could meet their requirements. With no usage restrictions and no 30 day evaluation periods, your use of the software can evolve over time. Start out with one department, or only storing the essential information. Over time, your involvement can grow.

Finally, our software is completely auditable. Our customers are free to validate how our software works and the security models we use. This approach is one that we believe leads to better quality software and a greater emphasis on security.

Our Perspective

There are a number of vendors of HR software in the marketplace, targetting small, medium and large enterprises. We would rather focus our effors on developing our software than on an expensive advertising campaign.

Several of our commercial applications (including our online performance appraisal tool and our exit interview system) needed a robust and scalable employee management component. We therefore decided to develop an HR database that could be used by our own applications, but could also be used by itself. An open source licence would therefore allow all organisations to benefit from our technology.

Our software benefits from increased feedback from our community and greater visibility of our services.