Drove by the UNESCO,the Open CourseWare Project of MIT has initiated a worldwide movement of Open Educational Resources (OERs).The education research center of OECD puts forward that the Open Source Software (OSS) should be the necessary component of OERs,which firms the close correlation between OERs and OSS,and offers more technical power to OERs.The paper discusses mainly the situation of OSS used in foreign higher education institutions,and analyses the reasons why those HEI pay so great attention to OSS.Then,the authors point out that OSS is very valuable for campus computing,not only because the OSS can reduce the cost of ICT application in universities and colleges,but also the spirit and philosophy of OSS is consistent with that of HEI,that is:knowledge is created collectively by human being,so it should be provided and accessible to everyone.Finally,they also raise some suggestions for the acceleration of OSS in China universities and colleges.