[OSGeo-Discuss] Is the integration of FOSS4G and proprietary software good for FOSS4G?

[Simone Giannecchini]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:29 PM, Brian Russo <brian at beruna.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:28 AM, Miguel Montesinos
> <mmontesinos at prodevelop.es> wrote:
>>
>> 1) Do you think that it may avoid proprietary users to migrate to open
>> solutions, as they can benefit of open-source libraries under their
>> proprietary software?
>
> It's overwhelmingly a good thing.
>
> If people are using proprietary software that incorporates open source
> libraries.. then they are using both open source AND proprietary
> software components. "100% open source" purists (in my opinion)
> alienate themselves from a large portion of the community.
> There are
> many practical reasons to use proprietary software, I don't see it as
> something that ever gets 100% eliminated (in an realistic timeline
> relevant to me).

This is a very good point, I fully agree with it.
IMHO the success of FOSS4G can be measures not (only) by the number of
closed/commercial deployments we can try to replace but rather by the
number of closed source software/companies relying on it.
GDAL docet.

Ciao,
Simone.


>
>> Besides, this give arguments to proprietary
>> manufacturers because of the weakness of open-source software needing to
>> run on top of proprietary ones, or to sell out their compatibility with
>> FOSS4G.
>
> No more than an argument that proprietary software is weak for
> 'needing' to leverage open source. And how is selling compatibility
> with FOSS4G bad? Isn't that the goal?
>
>
>
> --
> Brian Russo / (808) 271 4166
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