Impact of Free and Open-source Software Paradigm for Environmental Sustainability - Case Study in Higher Education Sector

Sustainability means achieving people’s needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, considering three domains including economic, social and environmental sustainability. Pulp and paper industry makes an enormous negative impact on environmental sustainability, and software development and usage also significantly effect on environmental sustainability. This Keywords - Environmental Sustainability, Paper Industry, Free and Open-source Software (FOSS), Education Management Information System (EMIS), E-learning, Higher Education Sector. I. INTRODUCTION Ecological, social and economic dimensions have been research was carried out to determine environmental sustainability impact of open-source software reuse in development of Educational Management Information System and usage of open-source e-learning platform called Moodle during a year of time in the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Case study research methodology was used to analyse the data quantitatively and qualitatively. Research outcomes show that some components of environmental stainability concepts called three R's - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle can be achieved by using free and open-source software solutions. The case study showed that available open-source solution could reduce millions of papers used per year in a higher education institute. Mediumscale Management Information System development can reuse free and open-source software components and save hundreds of Gigawatt Hours of energy and dozens of e-waste computers produced by software development. Accordingly, this research concludes that there is a significant impact of free and opensource software paradigm for environmental sustainability in the higher education sector by reducing and reusing resources, especially in limited financial allocations in Information and Communications Technology development.