[OSGeo-Discuss] Is it possible for properitery GIS vendor to market thier properitery product as Open ?

[Jody Garnett]

Considering android is marketed as open, yes this is possible in our
industry as well :)

Keep in mind we have several definitions of "open", even "open source" does
not match the same meaning of open advocated by the free software
foundation.

In our industry specifically we have open standards, allowing many
proprietary (and open source) products to be marketed as "open" (in the
sense that they support a standard allowing integration in a larger
systems).

By the same token a proprietary vendor can define an API with license terms
allowing customers and third-party vendors to create additional
functionality that extends their software. This is the meaning of "open
platform" I think you are referring to. There is a lot more meaning behind
"open platform" though, ideally you have a way for those third-party
vendors to turn a profit thus motivating their continued participation in
your platform.

This is a rough-and-tumble competition - we can no longer use the short
hand "open" to capture what we do here at OSGeo. We are going to have to
wade into these debates with a strong story and clear examples from our
community.  We should also expect platforms to be built up around our open
source projects (say Carto being built around PostGIS). This is a great way
to ensure these projects stay  viable, as long as we keep everyone involved
sufficiently encouraged/valued/funded.

Oh and to answer your question, the mislead customers may of confused "open
source" with "open platform". If we want the distinction clear in the
market we need to use organizations such as OSGeo to push that message.

--
Jody Garnett

On 22 March 2017 at 13:15, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have a query. If a properitery GIS vendor starts marketing thier
> properitery products as Open platform and software then what rights do the
> organisations and customers have who are mislead buying the  properitery
> software thinking it is open have ?  The definision of Proprietary
> software [1] is very clearly defined, so  how can it be possible for any
> properitery GIS vendor to market their  software knowingly as open platform
> if it is properitery?
>
> This also greatly affects the business and revenues of true open source
> software companies .  Who is responsible for any misleading marketing that
> results in losses to both customers who are mislead to buy the properitery
> software thinking it is open  and also to other companies who do true open
> source business who lose out on the business opportunities? Is it right
> business ethics to do this?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Suchith
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software
>
>
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