<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Hi Brian, and thanks for the inspirational overview. I totally agree with it.<br><br></div>But if I go back with this to my colleague (I won't meet him at the cafe after close-of-business today because I'm travelling, but tomorrow might well be), he will claim that this is too much of a quasi-philosophical explanation.<br><br></div>A simple way of getting the number is simply checking the revenue of the key companies involved in the business.<br><br></div>The next "quantum leap" in innovation might be round the corner and completely change our paradigms for estimating the size of a market, but until this happens, if we are assigning a value to it, we are making a bet.<br><br></div>The "third level" you mention is what my colleague calls "ecosystem services". Interestingly, their value can be estimated as well (I have started to work a few years ago on one of these cases);<br><br></div>but for the time being, I will stick to "level 1", considering the thread open for a couple of days, should any other folk wish to drop a line.<br><br></div>Thanks also for the "good travels" in Italy...in fact I am an Italian citizen and a resident, but I travel quite a lot up and down "The boot", as we call it (today towards the AC/DC gig in Imola...)<br><br></div>Best regards!<br><br></div>Andrea Giacomelli<br></div><a href="http://www.pibinko.org">http://www.pibinko.org</a><br><div><div><div><div><div><br><br><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2015-07-08 21:22 GMT+02:00 Brian M Hamlin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:maplabs@light42.com" target="_blank">maplabs@light42.com</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi Andrea -<br>
<br>
like so many good questions looking for a simple answer, there is no simple answer..<br>
Let's make a "thought experiment" .. and divide economic acitivity into three different groups..<br>
Each one could be measured in currency, but I wll argue that only one of them makes sense..<br>
<br>
* in the first case, the market is like a physical market . someone has eggs to sell, or furniture, or a service like medical service..<br>
a customer pays in currency, and all transactions are recorded (somehow).. the ecomonic value is the sum of all transactions..<br>
<br>
* the second is a market like a legal federation of many marketplaces..<br>
things are available from multiple sources, so prices go up and down..<br>
the prices change for a variety of reasons. But, what if someone "gives" something essential, for non-market reasons..<br>
the price may go down.. but what if a machine is invented that make one million times more of a good or service?<br>
does the price go down ? what if the machine makes something that was never available before.. is there a price ?<br>
<br>
* the third is the natural world we live in.. a unique collection of clear air, clean water, things to eat and places to live and<br>
make babies.. what is the "price" of clean water ? does it go up or down.. what is the "price" of a rhinocerous or an elephant,<br>
that is a living being not in the human market at all .. what if the actions of the market kills or poison things that are not in the<br>
market, to make room for things that are in the market..<br>
<br>
what if software can be used to understand these relationships outside of any market ?<br>
what is the "price" of this software ..<br>
<br>
So, in the first and most simple case.. you could take the sum of economic activity inside the exchange of currency..<br>
However, on a larger scale, the second and third measures are very important.. I say that the OpenSource Geospatial<br>
software worlds are very much in all of those.. so any number you count in the first one will be a poor measure of the<br>
others..<br>
<br>
good travels in Italy<br>
Brian M Hamlin<br>
<br>
--<br>
Brian M Hamlin<br>
OSGeo California Chapter<br>
<a href="http://blog.light42.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">blog.light42.com</a><br>
<br>
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