[OSGeo-Discuss] "Free"

[Zachary L. Stauber]

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I agree with Perry.  There are a lot of free/lite/express versions of GIS
software that are perfectly usable for small businesses or the non-profit
"neo-cartographer" such as Tatuk Viewer, ArcExplorer, OracleXE, and GoogleEarth.
 Because they are useful, they're going to be part of the tools of a lot of
people whether FOSS4G takes them into the fold or not, so we might as well.

Personally I'd like to see, exactly, how to connect up OracleXE with MS4W in a
demo at FOSS4G, so I say if they integrate with everything else well, let 'em
show it.  It may get some support out of folks like ESRI, too.  After all,
they've released many of the formats that became open standards, like SHP files,
BIL images, and I think they were instrumental in coming up with the WKT for
coordinate systems.

	-Zack

Pericles S. Nacionales wrote:
> I agree that it is an OSGeo conference and OSGeo promotes "free and open
> source" software.  If Oracle can demonstrate how their product
> works/integrates with open source geospatial software then I don't have
> a problem with that.
> 
> -Perry
> 
> Jason Birch wrote:
>> You know, I'd actually be in favour of this workshop if it showed how
>> Oracle can be integrated with open source geospatial applications (web
>> mapping, etc).  This is the kind of thing that many organisations need
>> to gradually integrate open source into their stacks.
>>
>> As it stands, it shows how to integrate a free beer proprietary
>> application with an expensive-beer application, and I am personally not
>> in favour of it.  This is a "Free and Open Source" conference not a
>> "Free or Open Source" conference.
>>
>> Jason

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