[Aust-NZ] Can proprietary products be discussed/promoted at FOSS4G2009?

[Mark Leslie]

Cameron Shorter wrote:
> While talking up FOSS4G2009 at a recent Australian conference (Qld SSI 
> on the Gold Coast) we were asked:
>
> "Are proprietary products allowed to be discussed/promoted at FOSS4G?"
>
> More specifically:
> * Do we accept presentations about integrating Open Source with 
> Proprietary?
> * Do we accept presentations from proprietary vendors about how they 
> can integrate with Open Standards/Open Source?
> * Are proprietary vendors allowed to Sponsor the conference?
> * Are proprietary vendors allowed to set up a booth?
> * Are proprietary vendors allowed to participate in an 
> interoperability testbed?
>  - To what extent?
>
> My take is:
> FOSS4G 2009's theme is "User Driven" and users need to integrate open 
> source with proprietary applications.
>
> So presentations and testbeds targeting "Integrating Proprietary with 
> Open Source" should be encouraged, Proprietary only is not allowed, 
> and at least 75% of the topics should be completely Open Source focused.
>
I think setting target levels for 'completely Open Source focused' is 
unnecessary.  If we take an approach similar to that used in 2007, then 
most of this will work itself out.  If people want to see integration 
presentations, then they'll vote for those and those will get the bigger 
rooms.  If we're going to require 75% to be 100% open source, then will 
we audit the case studies to unsure they aren't running Oracle backends, 
or deploying clients on Windows.
My only real concern is for the Interoperability testbed.  That should 
be built from top to bottom using solid open source products, but anyone 
giving a presentation or workshop or setting up a demo in the exhibition 
hall should be able to connect to it using whatever they are showing 
off, open or proprietary.  This is essentially our chance to showcase 
our infrastructural capabilities, and we should succeed or fail on our 
our own merits.
As far as sponsorship goes, cutting proprietary vendors will effectively 
remove sponsorship from the conference.  Keep in mind that Autodesk (as 
well as LISAsoft) are both proprietary vendors as well.  There is no 
need to stay black-and-white here, we should be prepared to show off the 
wonderful array of greys we have available.

-- 
Mark Leslie
Geospatial Software Architect
LISAsoft

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