  The adoption of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in educational
institutions is increasing day by day. Many countries are insisting the use of
FOSS in their government sectors and few are in the process of adopting FOSS
strategies. The reasons for adopting FOSS are: total cost ownership, free to
make copies and distribution, software legality, reliability, availability,
performance, security and other pedagogical and administrative benefits. In
this research paper, the alternative educational framework has been used to
identify the FOSS tools and software by considering the various strategic
areas, polices and phased approach to identify the suitable FOSS tools for the
courses of various specializations of Information Technology programme in
College of Applied Sciences, Sultanate of Oman. As a result of this research, a
list of alternative FOSS tools and software for the courses of IT programme has
been identified and recommended.
