The Myths of Open Source - Open Source - CIO Magazine Mar 1,2004 | Security, Insights, and Results for your Drupal or WordPress Website

The Myths of Open Source - Open Source - CIO Magazine Mar 1,2004
An article from CIO magazine examining reasons businesses are choosing Open Source, aside from price...

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About the Author

John Locke

John Locke is the lead developer and founder of Freelock, LLC. In addition to being a proficient web developer, he is an experienced technical writer, network administrator, and all around problem solver. He has worked with computers since 1984, and currently advises small businesses on open source software.

What We've Done

Better Care Network

Better Care Network (BCN) is an international network of organizations committed to supporting children without adequate family care around the world. BCN works by fostering collaboration,…

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ReThink Orphanages

ReThink Orphanages is a courageous organization with a benevolent charge, grand ambition, a network of high-powered partners, and a commitment to make the world a better place. The organization is…

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Witness.orgWitness.org: Using Video to Document and Tell Stories

Witness.org is a Brooklyn-based non-profit that “…makes it possible for anyone, anywhere to use video and technology to protect and defend…

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NWETC

The Northwest Environmental Training Center (NWETC) is an organization that is committed to helping environmental protections improve their career opportunities. The organization focuses on two…

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center eagle-i IntegrationAbout Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s (FHCRC) Shared Resources core facilities support biomedical research by providing services and expertise that…

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University of Washington Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE)

We originally partnered with CRPE's in-house web manager in 2012. He was familiar with the content management aspect of Drupal, but needed a bit of support with the more intricate ways that Drupal…

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Seattle Humane Society

We began working with Seattle Humane Society in February of 2016. They had reached out to us because they needed some emergency help with their website. For some reason, their site was reverting…

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Middle East Policy Council

The Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1981 whose mission is to contribute to American understanding of the political, economic and cultural issues…

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American College for Healthcare Sciences (ACHS)

ACHS originally partnered with Freelock in August of 2011 to perform some easy wins on their site. We started with a Freelock Site Assessment and code review of their Drupal 6 website. After that…

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Peninsula College and Athletics Sites

Peninsula College reached out to us in 2012 for some emergency work related performance issues on their site and problems with their site crashing. Once we were able to jump in and diagnose, we…

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Appliance Standards Awareness Project - ASAP

Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP) organizes and leads a broad-based coalition effort that works to advance, win and defend new appliance, equipment and lighting standards which deliver…

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Seattle Children's Alliance

Another Drupal 8 site upgrade! In June of 2016 we were approached by Seattle’s Children’s Alliance for a Drupal 5 to Drupal 8 migration. Their main concern was that their Drupal 5 site modules…

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center – HANC

We started working with another team at Fred Hutch in early 2016. They contacted us after they were needing some local TLC with their HIV/AIDS Network Coordination global CRM database (…

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DIYZ.com

We were approached in late 2015 by a marketing/design agency to take over this project. Their Drupal developer was on her way out and they needed some Drupal expertise. The website was just in…

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Jim Ovia Foundation

We originally worked with the main Jim Ovia stakeholder on a separate project, when she worked with a different giving organization. She then reached out to us in September of 2015 to let us know…

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World Vision Knit for Kids

When the team at World Vision approached us in late 2015 to work on a few of their Drupal sites, they also had their Knit for Kids website that was in WordPress. They wanted to take that site and…

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Second Nature Sports

Second Nature Sports is owned and operated by the same folks over at Locker Soccer Academy, so when their previous developer was closing shop, it was just natural to have them roll this site into…

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Locker Soccer Academy

In December of 2013, our friends at Locker Soccer Academy reached out to us regarding their soccer academy sites, that were already developed by a shop in Colombus, Ohio. The development shop was…

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World Vision mEducation Alliance

The product owners of the mEducation Alliance website contacted us in September, 2015 to provide ongoing monthly Drupal security and module updates. The site is a partnership between…

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World Vision Chinese/Korean Websites

World Vision decided to partner with Freelock in September of 2015 for their Chinese and Korean websites. Headquartered in Federal Way, Washington – this was a perfect fit! We took…

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Queen City Yacht Club

Our friends at Queen City Yacht Club approached us in April of 2015 regarding their Drupal 5 website. It was at the end of life and they wanted to upgrade. Their motivations were that they wanted…

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National Center for Science Education

In June of 2015, our colleague recommended our Drupal maintenance services to the National Center for Science Education. Our colleague was looking forward to large project and just didn't have the…

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Snoqualmie Tribe

Snoqualmie Tribe contacted us in December of 2014 in desperate need to secure their website. It turns out, they were susceptible to the Drupalgeddon attack and needed the Drupal 7.34 core…

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Lease Crutcher Lewis

In December of 2013, we were contacted by Lease Crutcher Lewis to take over their hosting. Their site is a great contender for Drupal 8! They were also interested in our Drupal maintenance plan…

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Bonavita World

In early 2014, our friends at Bonavita came to Freelock requesting that we help manage their main website Espresso Supply. Soon thereafter, they wanted to launch a website for one of their brands…

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Washington Housing Alliance Action Fund

The Washington Low Income Housing Alliance Action Fund first talked to us about building a new site last October, but they were not ready to proceed. This summer they were finally ready, and used…

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Max Dale's Steak and Chop House

Max Dale's Steak House is a popular restaurant a few dozen miles up the road in Mt. Vernon, Washington. If you're not from this state, you might have heard of Mt. Vernon when a major Interstate…

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IslandWood

About Islandwood

IslandWood is a nonprofit educational…

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Northwest Wall & Ceiling Bureau

Freelock built an informational website for the Northwest Wall & Ceiling Bureau (NWCB), an international trade organization for the wall and ceiling industry. We delivered a snappy…

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Totem Ocean

Freelock teamed up with Eben Design to build a new site for Totem Ocean Trailer Express, a shipping company that has two voyages between Tacoma and Anchorage each week. In addition to being a…

I-TECH

The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), a non-profit collaboration between the University of Washington and the University of California, San Francisco, came to…

Bellingham School District

For the Bellingham School District, Freelock put together a large, multi-faceted Drupal site for district-wide information and standardized sites for schools within the district containing…

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Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission

The Olympic Peninsula Tourism Board came to us in early 2009 to assist them in developing a visually stunning and highly functional website in a Content Management System. The site needed to be…

Latitudes in Learning

Latitudes in Learning creates personalized learning experiences that engage people and organizations in meaningful interactions with the world. Learning is one of the most difficult activities in…

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World Class Hunting The Project

The owner of World Class Hunting approached Freelock to launch their website. They had worked with Drupal on a previous project, so they were familiar and enjoyed Drupal. The project…

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Joey Klein The Project

Joey Klein's team approached Freelock to "rescue" their website. Through the course of their planning stages, the original developers found that they had reached a point where they did…

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LedgerSMB Web Site

LedgerSMB is an open source accounting and financial package. Freelock has used LedgerSMB for its bookkeeping practically since the project began, forking an earlier open source project called…

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Hydra Content Management System

Freelock worked closely with Consumer Media Network to create a content management system (Hydra) through which they can track assignments and submissions. We implemented a custom workflow system…

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DanceSafe

DanceSafe is a non-profit, harm reduction organization promoting health and safety within the rave and nightclub community. Local chapters consist of young people from within the dance culture…

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Answers for Elders

Freelock developed an informational website for Answers for Elders. Answers for Elders is an online resource for adults caring for elderly parents. Branded as the "Boomers' Online Community to…

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Ge•cko About Geocko

Geocko builds powerful tools that save time and increase engagement for nonprofit organizations. They simplify tasks, so organizations can stay forcused on running programs and…

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Freelock Custom CRM Tracking System - Project Dashboard

About Freelock

We continue to grow at…

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I-TECH Drupal 7 Upgrade About I-TECH

The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) is a center in the University of Washington's Department of Global Health. I-TECH headquarters in Seattle with…

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Nightingale-Bamford School About Nightingale-Bamford School

The Nightingale-Bamford School is an independent all-female university-preparatory school founded in 1920. With grades K-12, NBS is one of the top-ranked private…

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Lindbergh Gallery About Lindbergh Gallery

Lindbergh Gallery is Erik Lindbergh's venue for selling aerospace sculptures, furniture and other custom art pieces he creates. Erik Lindberg is the grandson of Charles…

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RevEquip About RevEquip

The RevEquip team is composed of foodservice consultants experienced in Revit and the creation of foodservice documents. Revit Families are developed to meet the standards…

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Nia Technique, Inc. About Nia Technique, Inc.

Nia is a sensory-based movement practice that draws from martial arts, dance arts and healing arts. Nia Technique Inc is built…

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Crossfit Games/PLY Interactive

In December 2011, Ply Interactive came to Freelock for assistance theming the Crossfit Games site, because of our Drupal expertise and the tight schedule for the project. This site was built from…

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Alaska Fishing Jobs Center

Scott Coughlin, a 24-season veteran of Alaska's salmon, herring and halibut fisheries, came to Freelock for help getting his site done. We picked up the pieces of the development project, yet…

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West Seattle Family Zone

The folks at WSFZ needed a directory-based website that was easy to maintain and easy to use. Catering to the families of this popular Seattle-area neighborhood, West Seattle, WSFZ wanted a clean…

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Cool Day Trips

Freelock was approached to build a website focused on the “Top 50” Day Trips from Seattle, based on rankings and reviews from users. Cooldaytrips.com includes a description of each destination,…

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Maltby Produce Markets, CSA

Our friends at Flower World came back to us for their latest project, Maltby Produce Markets CSA. Maltby Produce Markets grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in their fields, orchards,…

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Littlestar Prints

Littlestar Prints is one of our favorite sites. It combines some powerful drag-and-drop photo editing in the browser with e-commerce. We got to use both of our favorite software packages--Drupal…

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Organic Materials Research Institute (OMRI)

Another large scale project by Freelock Computing, the Organic Materials Research Institute tested our abilities to work with a variety of sources and the Drupal system. The project brought their…

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TerraBella Flowers - Organic Florist in Seattle

TerraBella Flowers & Mercantile specializes in European garden-style designs, using an assortment of local, organic, and sustainably grown flowers and is based in the Greenwood neighborhood…

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RadioFrame Networks

RadioFrame Networks came to Freelock in late 2008 for a web development project aimed at bringing their existing corporate static site content into the Joomla CMS. We worked with their existing…

WestSide Baby

WestSide Baby, in partnership with the Puget Sound community, provides essential items to local children in need by collecting and distributing diapers, clothing, toys and equipment. They partner…

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Booktrope

Booktrope's goal of getting online books to as many people as possible (for free!) was a project right up our alley, fitting nicely with our open source foundation.

From the beginning, we…

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Robinson Newspapers

Robinson Papers hired us to build a centrally-managed web site with different personalities for each of their papers but shared control. We built out a sophisticated system in Drupal, with…

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Riverview Community Church

Riverview originally came to Freelock to design and develop a website that would serve the needs of their rapidly growing church community. Originally a simple Joomla deployment, we have since…

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Phytec America

In early 2008, Phytec America brought Freelock on to maintain its Linux server systems and add an additional server. We configured a new server as an internal mail and file server, and converted…

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BlueView Technologies

BlueView Technologies initially hired us for Linux server administration in 2007. We have worked extensively with BlueView, expanding their IT infrastructure from one server which did everything…

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Running Wild Spirit Zen Cart

Running Wild Spirit is one of our earliest Zen Cart projects and has greatly contributed to the success and growth of their business. Based out of the small town of Maltby an hour and a half away…

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P5 Group Website

When P5 Group was looking to create a dynamic website, they looked to Freelock Computing to help. Using Drupal as a CMS platform, we created a site with multiple access levels for their wide…

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Seattle Jobs Scraper System

SeattleJobs.org hired Freelock to implement a system to scrape job listings from their customers' web sites. SeattleJobs.org lists jobs from about 45 member companies. In order for Seattle Jobs…

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Outdoor Research

Outdoor Research, an outdoor gear manufacturer, hired us to build their main public web site, along with a full administrative back end. We implemented a system that imports product data from…

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An XML-based Report Browser

One of Freelock, LLC's ongoing customers needed a web front-end for a proprietary reporting tool. This reporting tool could be configured to generate reports that ended up in Microsoft Excel.…

Custom Client Extranet

One of Freelock, LLC's ongoing customers needed a password-protected site that actually provided different content to different users, depending on the company or user group the user is part of…

Single-Source Help System

Over the course of creating help systems for multiple clients, Freelock, LLC developed a set of scripts that manage browse sequences, tables of contents, and cross-references for help systems.…

The Myths of Open Source - Open Source - CIO Magazine Mar 1,2004

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Software we're grateful for #1 - Matrix

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