I wrote this last night after mulling over the Denver LOC's loss in bidding for FOSS4G 2010:<div><br>An interesting thing happened today. The proposal from Barcelona, Spain for hosting the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial in 2010 won the committees vote. Right before the election, Peter Batty and I were attempting to understand what factors might impact the vote.<br>
<br>But first, a little background. Peter and I lead a group (the Denver Local Organizing Committee – or LOC) that put together a competing proposal to host the conference in Denver. We put together an all-star LOC from North American geospatial bloggers, experienced industry leaders, significant FOSS contributors, US Government researchers and academics. We teamed up with the Geospatial Information Technology Association (GITA) who would manage the logistics of hosting, what we estimated, would be a 1000+ attendee conference.<br>
<br>In addition to our proposal and the winning proposal from Barcelona, submissions were made from Beijing, China and Utrecht, The Netherlands. We had a great deal of confidence going into the vote. Our proposal was very professional and extremely well organized and directly addressed the issues mentioned in the RFP. This was born out in the fact that we had less than half the number of questions posed to the other bidding groups in the first round of questions and significantly less time was spent discussing issues with our proposal in the final IRC discussion.<br>
<br>We had a fantastic proposal, a great organizing committee and the support of a well-respected organization handling the logistics. So, what happened?<br> <br>Like so many coincidences in life, I happen to be preparing for my comprehensive exams. One of the three areas I am being tested over is "Critical Cartography". So I've been reading lots of Denis Wood, J. Brian Harley, Denis Cosgrove, Gunar Olsson, Jeremy Crampton, etc., etc. This reading guided part of the discussion with Peter as the votes were being tallied.<br>
<br>One way to look at FOSS4G is as a resistance response to the power of commercial software, especially ESRI's ArcGIS. Much of Harley's conception of the map, historically, was through a Foucauldian discourse of power. Maps reflect a position of power. Maps, historically, have been used to define boundaries and guide wars. But, in accordance with Foucault, power cannot truly exist without resistance. If we grant ESRI the same position of power as Harley grants maps and cartography, then the resistance to that power is FOSS4G.<br>
<br>In the US, we specifically value capitalism and commercialism. We admire, as heroes, men like Bill Gates and Jack Dangermond. Open Source software consistently struggles against the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt generated by the commercial software developers. We feel the need for support structures of technical support and legal entities to sue. Consider the roe against Dell when they outsourced their customer service to India. Americans would get irate if they heard someone with a foreign accent on the end of the line. But for the rest of the world, commercial support ALWAYS has a foreign accent – an American accent! Americans like power – and they mistake it for security. No one ever got fired for buying IBM. And no one ever will get fired for buying ESRI.<br>
<br>The Denver LOC proposed a large, commercially-focused FOSS4G 2010 conference. This proposal very much reflected the American values. Let's find a way to marry open source with commercial interests! We'll have over a thousand participants… and skiing!<br>
<br>It's my belief that the vote worked out to a debate over whether OSGeo wanted the conference to become just another part of the American power structure or to use it to grow the resistance where it is strongest. Even the choice of Barcelona over Utrecht seems to support his argument. Utrecht's proposal, like the Denver proposal, was very thorough and well supported by both commercial and non-commercial interests. While Utrecht would have kept the conference in Europe, it wouldn't have fostered resistance to Western, capitalist values and the power represented by ESRI to the same degree as much as Barcelona.<br>
<br>It is important to note that the Beijing organizing committee challenges with language barriers. Further, they estimated that only 10% of the attendees would be international. So their proposal looked much more like a regional conference and less like the international conference OSGeo was looking for.<br>
<br>The resistance to American commercial power in geospatial software is created through the efforts of individuals and organizations. The resistance is frequently due economic exclusion from the power of ESRI software. But even in many corners of American academics, we see this resistance, usually due to Redmond's inability to respond to their needs. It is appropriate that OSGeo chose to keep FOSS4G out of America. The resistance needs to build.<br>
<br>So, how do we reconcile the power and resistance? Maybe America can help the world understand the value of Free Geospatial Data while starting to listen to the rest of the world (or even the local voices) about the utility of FOSS4G. Maybe Americans can begin to understand that an investment in FOSS improves the quality and capability. Perhaps FOSS does entail hiring more intelligent IT people – but that investment pays off in the long run.<br>
<br>Just some thoughts… See you in Sydney in 2009 and Barcelona in 2010!<br><div>-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-<br>Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818<br>USGS Geographer<br>Center of Excellence in GIScience<br>
PhD Student <br>CU-Boulder - Geography<br><br>
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