[OSGeo-Discuss] Propietary vs. FOSS4GIS round-table in Spain

[Miguel Montesinos]

Hi to everybody,

A round-table with subject "free software, propietary software and GIS" was held at Madrid, Spain, last december, the 18th of 2007, with people talking from the propietary side (top managers from ESRI and Intergraph in Spain), people from FOSSGIS side (gvSIG and regional Spanish governments) as well as academics and National Public Administration, under the chair of IGN (Spanish National Geographic Institute).

A good thing about this event it's that it's been published in YouTube [1] (with written acceptance by talkers).

It's a pitty that it's only in Spanish, maybe from the OSGeo Spanish Chapter we could translate something. Anyway I'll translate some funny things that have been said there.

- Alfonso Rubio (Top Manager at ESRI Spain): [2] "from an intellectual point of view, I wonder that if free software is a software with freedom to be modified at any time, that is just the opposite of guaranteeing that we are able to work with standards, because any user, or even any implementation, can modify it"

- A. Rubio (ESRI) in a 2nd talk: [3] "it seems that standard support is less guaranteed with free software from an intellectual point of view"
and finally: "a standard -in the end- is a boring thing"

- Rubén Andreani (Top Manager at Intergraph Spain): [4] "How much does it cost to make a software and to maintain it? There's a gossip which says that a version of a GIS software costs around 100-200 million $ ... so, obviously the software cannot be free (for *gratis*) because money has to come from anywhere."

[1] http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=IGN000
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4WGp8Uzwe0 
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvqPtV8pA0I
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9obEhklAlA

Interesting and funny things within an "official position".

Regards,

---------------------------------
Miguel Montesinos
Technical Manager
PRODEVELOP
C/ Conde Salvatierra, 34 - 10
46004 Valencia. Spain
e-mail: mmontesinos at prodevelop.es
http://www.prodevelop.es
Tlf: +34 963510612