[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: land records management with open source GIS

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 12:12:43AM -0500, P Kishor wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Thanks for replying, everyone. Instead of replying to each one of you
> separately, I am replying to myself, primarily to add more info to
> this query.
> 
> On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 12:24 AM, P Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com> wrote:
> > does anyone know of an existing product, or a firm that develops such
> > a product catering to cadastral and land records management, but using
> > a completely open source stack?
> >
> 
> A friend of mine is working in a SA country that has a new policy that
> all software at the national level must be non-commercial open source.

One of these clauses makes sense, one of them does not. Why would you
limit yourself to *non* commercial Open Source? Don't people realize
that hiring someone with expertise in a field is sometimes better --
depending on your in-house expertise that exists -- than learning it
all on your own?

Open Source isn't supposed to mean 'free' :( At least they're 
acknowledging that there will be some costs, but overall, I feel icky
whenever I see someone say things like 'non-commercial open source';
the whole point of the 'open' part is that it shouldn't be a problem
if it's commercial.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer