[OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 04:24:37PM +0000, Chris Puttick wrote:
> 
> ----- "Christopher Schmidt" <crschmidt at crschmidt.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > > Speak to whom? Decision makers with no real knowledge of the thing
> > they are
> > > signing off on, being advised by lazy people who have some
> > understanding but
> > > want to ensure they cover their back and don't have to try too
> > > hard
> > rather
> > > than implement the best solution for the least money?
> > 
> > No, to the lazy people. If your code is good enough, then the right
> > way -- even the lazy way -- will be the Open Source way. In order to
> > really succeed,
> 
> You've not been hanging with enough lazy people. Laziness is taking the path
> of least resistance; in IT that means using the brand most people know about
> regardless if it is the best tool for the job. 

Sometimes brand is all that matters. In that case, I don't think that a
successful marketer changes the equation.

Sometimes more than the brand matters; especially when the person who is
going to be implementing any potential solution has a say in the way the
solution is developed. I maintain that *Those* cases are the ones to
target first: When OSGeo software projects are succeeding at those
regularly (not a done deal yet, in my mind) then we (as a community) can
turn to outreach as a next step.

> You think people went to NT Server because it was better than Netware?
> It wasn't. People chose MS SQL Server because it was better than its
> competitors, open or closed source? It wasn't (and in so many ways
> still isn't). 

And the reasons for those are not ones that would be swayed by any
marketing argument that an OSGeo representative could make. If the fact
that our software is better, cheaper, and more fully featured, and
people still want to use ESRI -- as is often the case -- then why fight
them? What is the point in spending your effort to force your way into a
community that is fighting against you, rather than -- for example --
expanding into a developing market that doesn't have the same
preconceptions? The latter will have way more chance of improving the
projects through more contributions, etc. in the end, in my opinion.

> Marketing. Branding. Lots of ferrying decision makers to
> shiny demo labs and glossy events and making them feel good about the
> product, regardless of the fact that driving sports cars around race
> tracks has nothing to do with the promo'd products effectiveness
> (although such events should provide some pointers about value for
> money...).

Again, if people are making decisions based on irrational things, then
OSGeo software isn't going to convince them. I do not think that OSGeo
should attempt to compete with the 'big boys' in terms of dollars and
effort spent on advertising. That would be a mistake, because those
dollars could almost universally be better spent -- by the organization
-- in supporting a developer attending a conference or sprint, in
getting better project hosting together, or other things like that.

Sure, if money, time, and energy were infinite, marketing in the same
way that the Big.Co.s do would make sense, but they're not. With that in
mind, I think that OSGeo should not be about trying to push out other
software: We should document what projects are, what they do, how they
do it *better* -- and if people don't want better, that's all there is
to it.

(Note that this does not apply to companies using OSGeo software, or
doing contracting, or anything else like that. They are well-suited for
that type of 'convincing', whereas OSGeo is positioned poorly for it.)

> Laziness is going with the solution most people have heard of; in
> particular not having to look at lots of options and not having to
> come up with a real defence in the event of issues arising from the
> choices made. No one ever got fired for buying IBM was a line in the
> 80s regarding computing solution purchases; in GIS right now I guess
> you all know the products in the typical organisational list - how
> many open source ones are on it? 

Actually, to be honest, I don't. I do know that the products in my
organization's list are MapServer, GDAL, and OpenLayers, and have been
since before my time. 

I'm sure that there are many companies out there that are like this.
Changing companies that aren't -- rather than documenting what exists
and allowing them to make the choice -- is (at least at this point, and
in my opinion for the forseeable future) not worth the effort when it
could be easily spent better.

> For sure OSGeo and most open source products will never have big
> marketing budgets, so no sports cars, F1 practice days, Grand Prix
> tickets, WSB tickets (to name a few I've recently been offered as a
> decision-maker); but there are other kinds of marketing and that we
> can, should and do engage in. And the next time I meet a typical peer
> at an IT management conference and he has gvSIG on his desktop GIS
> shortlist and his SDI components are all open source or at least open
> standards compliant, I'll know the marketing is paying off!

Educating people who don't want to be educated is difficult and wasted
effort when there are people who are looking to learn. I'm not saying
that everyone will be convinced if we create great software and document
it well, but until we do that (and probably even after), I can't see
*OSGeo* (rather than organizations packaging and selling OSGeo software)
as the pusher of software.

When I was a little kid, my dad would always bring home little trinkets
that said "Mentor Graphics" on them. When I asked why he had these
things, he would explain that "Vendors" would give them to him, when
trying to convince him to buy their software. What you are describing is
what Vendors do to try to convince IT professionals to purchase their
software. This is a perfectly reasonable thing for Vendors to do -- but
I don't believe that OSGeo should act like a vendor in this way.

Best Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer