In an ever changing and broken world, we are called to love one another as Christ first loved us. We are also instructed to share the Good News. That is that Christ saved us and made us righteous by his death and resurrection. To do our part for spreading the Good News and showing the Love to those around us, here at FOSS Church we provide technology consulting services to the Church and to Christian based orginizations. We promote the use of Open Source Tools, Services and Software. We believe that your data, content and other digitial information should belong to you and your Church and no one else. Corporations and Govenments should not have the final say in how, when, where, or to whom the Church shares the Good News.
In simple terms, FOSS is software that allows users to not only freely run the program for any purpose, but also provides users access to the code. Moreover, it also allows them to modify as they wish, as well as freely distribute copies of the original version or their altered version of the code.
Using FOSS software and FOSS based services and platforms allows your data to truely be your data. Closed source software and services force there terms and conditions of use on you. As a user of these closed source systems you are bound by the End User License Agreement (EULA) or Terms of Service (ToS). Closed source providers can impart their agenda on you the user. EULA and ToS can change at anytime and while usually not without notice, that notice is usually an email caught in your email's spam filter.
Currently social media platforms or service like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, SnapChat and others are all the rage. Your steam your Church's audio and video content via these closed source platforms. You post events and written content. All of this content can be monitored, removed, blocked, or even changed by the platform owners. While this is unlikely for the providers listed here it isn't technically improssiable and only due to the fact that for those of us in the United States and other "free" countries that our governments have not stated that worship of God or sharing of the Good News is illegal. Paul addresses the position in which we find ourselves in 2 Corinthians.