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

Thu Jul 24 03:16:29 EDT 2008

IMO:

Agreed.

Demonstrating integration with existing systems is a key driver for 
showing the benefit of FOSS4G. It should also attract more participants as 
has been suggested.

It will take a brave architect / CIO / manager who will propose to their 
senior managers that they can throw away the investment that they have 
made in systems, software, processes, training and people over the past 
'x' years and bring in a FOSS4G 'new world order' in a big bang program of 
works.

It certainly doesn't hurt to demonstrate that FOSS4G plays well with other 
systems.

...and as Mark suggested:

- have a fully FOSS Interoperability Testbed to demonstrate that yes, it 
really can be done.

- don't mandate at this stage percentages of presentations. I think that 
we have a period of time after abstracts have been submitted to look at 
this again.

Bruce

"Chris Tweedie" <chris at narx.net> 
Sent by: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
24/07/2008 04:40 PM

To
"'Cameron Shorter'" <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>, <pcreso at pcreso.com>, 
"'Aust-NZ OSGeo'" <Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org>
cc

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

I agree with Brent 100%. If FOSS4G is about broadening the reach of
opensource geospatial, it has to hinge on the interoperability with 
existing
spatial systems, commercial or otherwise. Would commercial vendors even 
risk
pitching "too-commercial" abstracts at the cost of alienating the FOSS4G
community? Furthermore, has this actually been a problem at previous
conferences?

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:17 PM
To: pcreso at pcreso.com; Aust-NZ OSGeo
Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] Can proprietary products be discussed/promoted at
FOSS4G2009?

Brent seems to have issues getting through to the list. Scroll down for 
his comments.

pcreso at pcreso.com wrote:
> Hi Cameron, 
>
> I have sent it there, twice, one bounce (my fault) & then a non-event.
I'll try again, but if you don't see it there, can you post it there for 
me?
>
> Cheers,
>
>    Brent
>
>
> --- On Thu, 7/24/08, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
>> From: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] Can proprietary products be discussed/promoted 
at
FOSS4G2009?
>> To: pcreso at pcreso.com
>> Date: Thursday, July 24, 2008, 10:23 AM
>> Thanks, this is good advice, do you mind if you CC it to the
>> Aust-NZ 
>> list as well and lend weight to go down the path you
>> recommend.
>>
>> pcreso at pcreso.com wrote:
>> 
>>> My 02c on this...
>>>
>>> I have been involved with a few conferences based on
>>> 
>> FOSS GIS/database apps, and my presentations used to focus
>> pretty much exclusively on the FOSS aspect. In response to
>> user feedback & what I perceive as a change in the
>> industry, I now focus on Open Standards &
>> interoperability. If a proprietary app supports open
>> standards & is interoperable with FOSS, I'm happy
>> to include them. 
>> 
>>> This leads to, for example, Oracle sites migrating to
>>> 
>> Postgres, because Oracle users are willing to come to
>> discussions/presentations where Oracle is discussed, but
>> not otherwise...
>> 
>>> Otherwise I feel we tend to just preach to the
>>> 
>> converted, which makes for fun & supportive
>> conferences, but doesn't necessarily introduce FOSS to
>> non-FOSS users. 
>> 
>>> There are plenty of Arc sites out there, & getting
>>> 
>> them to consider PostGIS under SDE, making their data
>> available via OGC web services, accessing our data via web
>> services & supporting initiatives like GeoNetworks
>> won't happen without dialogue. We need to involve them
>> more.
>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>>   Brent Wood
>>>
>>>
>>> --- On Wed, 7/23/08, Cameron Shorter
>>> 
>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> From: Cameron Shorter
>>>> 
>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
>> 
>>>> Subject: [Aust-NZ] Can proprietary products be
>>>> 
>> discussed/promoted at FOSS4G2009?
>> 
>>>> To: "conference_dev"
>>>> 
>> <conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org>, "Aust-NZ
>> OSGeo" <Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org>
>> 
>>>> Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 6:36 PM
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Cameron Shorter
>>>> Geospatial Systems Architect
>>>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>>>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>>>
>>>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>>>> Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source
>>>> 
>> Solutions
>> 
>> http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html
>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Aust-NZ mailing list
>>>> Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> -- 
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Geospatial Systems Architect
>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
>> http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html
>> 

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

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html

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