[OSGeo-Discuss] overall value of market for business based on OSGEO projects?

[Brian M Hamlin]

Hi Andrea - 

  like so many good questions looking for a simple answer, there is no simple answer.. 
Let's make a "thought experiment" .. and divide economic acitivity into three different groups.. 
Each one could be measured in currency, but I wll argue that only one of them makes sense.. 

 * in the first case, the market is like a physical market . someone has eggs to sell, or furniture, or a service like medical service.. 
a customer pays in currency, and all transactions are recorded (somehow).. the ecomonic value is the sum of all transactions.. 

* the second is a market like a legal federation of many marketplaces.. 
things are available from multiple sources, so prices go up and down.. 
the prices change for a variety of reasons. But, what if someone "gives" something essential, for non-market reasons.. 
the price may go down.. but what if a machine is invented that make one million times more of a good or service?
does the price go down ? what if the machine makes something that was never available before.. is there a price ?

* the third is the natural world we live in.. a unique collection of clear air, clean water, things to eat and places to live and
make babies.. what is the "price" of clean water ? does it go up or down.. what is the "price" of a rhinocerous or an elephant, 
that is a living being not in the human market at all .. what if the actions of the market kills or poison things that are not in the 
market, to make room for things that are in the market.. 

  what if software can be used to understand these relationships outside of any market ? 
  what is the "price" of this software .. 

So, in the first and most simple case.. you could take the sum of economic activity inside the exchange of currency.. 
However, on a larger scale, the second and third measures are very important.. I say that the OpenSource Geospatial 
software worlds are very much in all of those.. so any number you count in the first one will be a poor measure of the 
others.. 

  good travels in Italy 
  Brian M Hamlin

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Brian M Hamlin
OSGeo California Chapter
blog.light42.com