Abstract
Sahana is Sinhalese for "relief". Sahana rose from the waves of the Boxing Day tsunami in Sri Lanka as a free and open source software (FOSS) solution for managing information before, during, and after a disaster. Commercial disaster management systems are often unsustainable for all but the wealthiest of countries - Sahana was created as a system that can be deployed in a sustainable fashion in any country on the bare minimum of computer hardware and communications. Many of the benefits provided by FOSS contribute directly to sustainability of this solution - increased flexibility, ease of customisation, deployment not restricted by licence agreements, and skills required to support Sahana can increasingly be found in local communities.
