[OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo

[Chris Puttick]

----- "Christopher Schmidt" <crschmidt at crschmidt.net> wrote:
> > 
> > Speak to whom? Decision makers with no real knowledge of the thing
> they are
> > signing off on, being advised by lazy people who have some
> understanding but
> > want to ensure they cover their back and don't have to try too hard
> rather
> > than implement the best solution for the least money?
> 
> No, to the lazy people. If your code is good enough, then the right
> way -- 
> even the lazy way -- will be the Open Source way. In order to really
> succeed,

You've not been hanging with enough lazy people. Laziness is taking the path of least resistance; in IT that means using the brand most people know about regardless if it is the best tool for the job. You think people went to NT Server because it was better than Netware? It wasn't. People chose MS SQL Server because it was better than its competitors, open or closed source? It wasn't (and in so many ways still isn't). Marketing. Branding. Lots of ferrying decision makers to shiny demo labs and glossy events and making them feel good about the product, regardless of the fact that driving sports cars around race tracks has nothing to do with the promo'd products effectiveness (although such events should provide some pointers about value for money...).

Laziness is going with the solution most people have heard of; in particular not having to look at lots of options and not having to come up with a real defence in the event of issues arising from the choices made. No one ever got fired for buying IBM was a line in the 80s regarding computing solution purchases; in GIS right now I guess you all know the products in the typical organisational list - how many open source ones are on it? Is it because the open source products can't do the job?

For sure OSGeo and most open source products will never have big marketing budgets, so no sports cars, F1 practice days, Grand Prix tickets, WSB tickets (to name a few I've recently been offered as a decision-maker); but there are other kinds of marketing and that we can, should and do engage in. And the next time I meet a typical peer at an IT management conference and he has gvSIG on his desktop GIS shortlist and his SDI components are all open source or at least open standards compliant, I'll know the marketing is paying off!

NB In my case laziness is probably avoiding learning to be a developer (and GIS person) while still wanting to be of use...


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