[OSGeo-Discuss] R: Proprietary GIS on our OSGeo website

Wed Sep 20 12:59:58 PDT 2017

This is my last mail on this topic, because it is stupid to go ahead in this conversation and I don't want to become upset. I want only to highlight that what you call "social pressure" is simply to listening to the community thoughts. Community is more than a beautiful picture of people... Thanks Jody and have a good night.
Maria

Inviato dal mio dispositivo Samsung

-------- Messaggio originale --------
Da: Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com>
Data: 20/09/17 21:46 (GMT+01:00)
A: Helmut Kudrnovsky <hellik at web.de>
Cc: OSGeo Discussions <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Oggetto: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proprietary GIS on our OSGeo website

Okay folks this conversation thread is starting to make me upset; we have gone from a productive discussion and has escalated.

To be clear we have an open bug report, the specific feature is part of the website template and I do not have the ability to edit it directly. Listing "migrate from" is optional and project leaders can change this page to reflect the area in which they work.

This conversation appears to be missing the point of the exercise of the website as a whole and applying social pressure to get-something-to-change.

I do not believe social pressure is an effective tool:
- Are you actually offended and speaking from personal feeling? If so can you explain more how you feel we need to balance the communication goals of the website vs your feelings as community member
- Are you applying social pressure to have this "Migrate to" information removed? I am interested in respecting the project leadership (who has control of these pages) and the marketing committee (who has an outreach responsibility). I feel that listening, rather than social pressure, is a good way to make responsible decisions.
- Are you thinking ahead to how a specific community, say the QGIS community in this case, may feel about having "Migrate from: ArcMap, MapInfo" on this page? If so you are correct this original bug report came from the QGIS community, and I hope it has been addressed. I think the QGIS community offers a far better experience both in support and freedom then the alternatives listed. This initial information is provided by each PSC, and if we could get our LDAP working it would be their responsibility to edit or remove on a case by case basis, there should be no cause for projects to be offended.
- Are you concerned about inviting comparison to open source to proprietary at all? If so you are a bit stuck as we have an outreach mandate at OSGeo. If you have specific concerns about comparison we can address them, and help write the "why open source" page explaining that open source is a much better way to geo :)

Please be respectful of the contributors working on the website/rebranding and during the foss4g sprint.

--
Jody Garnett

On 20 September 2017 at 02:41, Helmut Kudrnovsky <hellik at web.de<mailto:hellik at web.de>> wrote:
Dear OSGeo community

I want to bring you a discussion on a github ticket about linking to "similar proprietary products" [1] to your attention.

My comment there:

"I support and concur with Venka that the item "Similar Proprietary Products" should be removed. There isn't only one proprietary GIS software out there, there are several others. IMHO such comparisons may be part of e.g. a reviewed scientific paper/elaboration, where our OSGeo projects - if they want to - may link to. I see no added value for OSGeo to serve such links. As already elsewhere mentioned by me, reciprocity is the key if such items are listed, but I can't see this happen. "

I'm pretty much convinced that more effort to help our OSGeo projects improving on every level (e.g. documentation, reach out, testing, etc) is the key rather than linking to proprietary software. One of such opportunities may be the upcoming Google Code In (GCI) 2017 e.g. to produce nice screenshots for documentation, produce some fancy videos etc. based on tiny little tasks for students aged 13 to 17. A good invest in the young who will be our OSGeo's future.

Kind regards
Helmut
OSGeo charter member

[1] https://github.com/OSGeo/osgeo/issues/100
[2] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2017-September/036217.html
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