[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source vs Closed source

[Lester Caine]

Bob Basques wrote:
>   I've already found a bunch of stuff, just trying to figure out the
> authority aspects, do the writers know what they are talking about, etc,
> need to pass things on to people that don't know or want to know the
> details, but are interested in savings (which is my primary sales focus,
> so far)
I work with local council customers over here who have to pay Ordnance Survey 
license fees for a lot of the mapping data that they use. Even where THEY have 
supplied the data in the first place ;) and the current move to open up access 
over here is because of the pressure to make things more open. I only use open 
source projects in the frameworks I install, so we have no requirement to cover 
'user licenses' or anything like that, and up until now only OSM has been used 
for street maps. The availability of OS data now allows an alternative to be 
added under the same rules. This is a lot more restrictive than the US, where 
OSM has a lot more detail provided by the TIGER data already.

> We've had OpenSource software in place in the office for a number of
> years, but not in an end user exposed location, which is where this
> disucussion is aimed at..
>
> This would be the early stage stuff, as in, what is OpenSource, sounds
> too good to be true sort of replies (Literally!!).
'We need to add a couple more users - how much will it cost?' is MY usual 
enquiry. When I say NOTHING there is usually a 'Really!'. Using web based access 
ADDING some sort of usage management would cost money :) If we find that the 
load on the servers has grown too much then we just sell them an additional 
server ( and maintenance on that ;) )

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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