[Marketing] OSGeo benefits

[Cameron Shorter]

Jo,
For government, I suggest focusing on government's selection criteria 
for projects, which is usually:
* Value for money
* Low Risk

Yes, Open Source licenses are free, but when promoted that way, Open 
Source often comes across as being "cheap". Also, the Total Cost of 
Ownership for Open Source and Proprietary, when compared head to head, 
is often similar, or even favours the proprietary software.

The value for Open Source comes when you consider the extra benefits 
open source brings:

In particular:
* If a government invests Open Source software, they can give it away to 
the government's community groups, and citizens, for free.

* When you give away your software as Open Source, the international 
community will likely use it, and then improve it, which in turn 
benefits the local government. (This can be factored into purchasing 
selection criteria as Opportunity Management, which is the same as Risk 
Management, but in reverse. Ie, identify what could go right, then put 
enablement strategies in place to ensure that it happens).

You were after some material for presentations. I'll forward some slides 
through for this 15 minute overview of Geospatial Open Source here:
http://blip.tv/file/2748984

I'll send when I get to work in ~ 4 hours.

Jo Walsh wrote:
> So, benefits to local government of using and supporting open source 
> (in general) and OSGeo in particular -
>
> 1) Save money
> 2) Grow small local business
> 3) Share knowledge with peer organisations
> 4) Be part of a wider governance culture
> 5) Rapid access to innovations
> 6) Preservation through open standards
> 7) Outreach through open data (starting again at 1 for open data)
> N) ?
>
> I should add more to the list, thinking this is a talk to management 
> types who will be technologically aware but not that into details of 
> process.
>
> Any advice much apprec,
>
>
> jo
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com