[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo friendly countries to live in

[Andrew Turner]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 10:53 AM, P Kishor<punk.kish at gmail.com> wrote:
> My feeling is (_feeling_, not an assertion backed by evidence) that
> the US govt. agencies stay out of supporting or not supporting any
> particular kind of software or technology. They use what they think is
> best, without creating a policy out of it, and generally let the
> provider and the consumer of technologies duke it out. Of course, I
> have no scientific evidence for this statement. But the proliferation
> of Canadian Blackberries in the US Senate and House is a fairly decent
> reflection of this.

While things are getting better - mandates pushing open data,
nominally open standards, and trying to build better procurement of
Open-Source technology, lobbying rules much. For a solid example, see
how GIS Standards as dictated by local governments:

http://apb.directionsmag.com/archives/5599-Oregon-ESRI-ELA-and-the-Legislation-Behind-It.html
&
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/rules/OARS_100/OAR_125/125_600.html

I think Landon covered it well - many varied stakeholders, from
software vendors, to support contracts, training, constituencies,
legacy, funding (retooling) that prevent changing from what's
currently in place.

But it doesn't have to be this way. So as much as the US Federal
government is a model to other governments in the benefits of sharing
data - the more other governments adopt open-source & open-standards,
the more the US will be pressured to do the same. :)

Andrew