[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: OS and proprietary

[Mark Lucas]

Interestingly enough, in our efforts with Open Technology Development  
and the Department of Defense (US), the Navy made that determination  
that OSS was COTS - and therefore needed to be considered on an equal  
footing with proprietary solutions for Navy acquisitions.

Mark

On Apr 27, 2008, at 6:34 PM, Arnulf Christl wrote:

>
> [...]
>>> My original sentiment still stands -- if you have the money, but  
>>> don't
>>> have the skills, and don't need it "yesterday," it might be better  
>>> in the
>>> long-term to fund an extension of a good OSS project than to take  
>>> the
>>> easy way out and buy a COTS package.
>>>
>> Absolutely.
>
> It appears that Open Source is the next level in the evolution of  
> business
> models[1]. It is not a revolution because there is nothing to go  
> back to.
> Slowly a sentiment is growing in the suits that business with software
> must be different to business with hardware due to their inherent
> difference[2]. We are pushing this process forward with every line  
> of code
> that we produce, with every aspect of the foundation that we create  
> and we
> can nudge it a bit further by using terminology appropriate to this
> process. So watch out for the words we use.
>
> COTS translates into "commercial off the shelf" and I wonder why  
> this term
> should be restricted to proprietary packages. The times when one had  
> to
> manually compile a PostGIS, MapServer, GeoServer, gvSIG, Quantum GIS  
> and
> so on, before one could use them are over. You can - and that is an  
> extra
> advantage - but you don't have to.
>
> So my suggestion is to put COTS on the shelf of terminology that is
> compatible with Open Source.
>
> Best regards,
> Arnulf.
>
> [1]
> http://www.opensourcejahrbuch.de/portal/article_show?article=osjb2007-01-02-freyermuth.pdf
> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Software
>
> -- 
> Arnulf Christl
> http://www.wheregroup.com
>
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