[OSGeo-Discuss] Proprietary GIS on our OSGeo website

[Jody Garnett]

Thanks Even I was going to try and circle back to this today.

We do have the wish to list product names, notably for supported formats
and interoperability. The http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/projects/geoserver/
page lists for example:

*Server data from a variety of data sources*
Vector: Shapefiles, External WFS, PostGIS, ArcSDE, DB2, Oracle Spatial,
MySql, SQL Server and more!
Raster: GeoTiff, JPG and PNG (with world file), image pyramid, GDAL
formats, Image Mosaic, Oracle GeoRaster, NetCDF


We do have a legitimate reason to use product names, but there is reason to
be careful/respectful when doing so. In the above list we should probably
add SQLServer® for example, and a footnote to the page.

--
Jody Garnett

On 21 September 2017 at 12:10, Even Rouault <even.rouault at spatialys.com>
wrote:

> On jeudi 21 septembre 2017 11:20:54 CEST Jeffrey Johnson wrote:
>
> > We have that kind of page here
>
> > http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/about/migrate-open-source-gis/ ... The
>
> > link was removed from the hero area when Steve Feldman changed this in
>
> > Boston, so there is no content there now.
>
> >
>
> > Are we not willing to even mention the names of these proprietary
>
> > products for fear of 'promoting' them? Or do we want to present the
>
> > user coming from outside our community some context about which open
>
> > source projects are an analogue or replacement for the proprietary
>
> > products they are already familiar with? Thats the real question in my
>
> > mind.
>
>
>
> I cannot honestly think that anyone would seriously believe we are
> promoting
>
> proprietary software if they are mentionned under a "Migrate from" label.
> But
>
> the point here about if we can legally use other product names (and if that
>
> is a use of a trademark) in that context is a good one. They are probably
> rules
>
> and good practices to follow in doing so, which can depend on juridictions
> (probably
>
> US law applies here if the site is hosted in the US).
>
> Quickly researching about the topic leads to this article:
>
> https://moz.com/blog/comparative-advertsing-can-i-
> talk-about-my-competitor-on-my-website
>
> The bottom line is that there are legal ways of comparing to a competitor
> (is a
>
> "Migrate from XXXX" mention considered as comparative advertising is
> another questio),
>
> but you can still be sued even if you follow the rules, so it is a matter
> of
>
> appreciating the benefit vs the risk. Funnily they recommand to explictly
> mention
>
> that you're not affiliated with the other product owner! (I guess that's
> in the
>
> same vein as the "Caution: Contents Hot" mention on coffee cups ;-))
>
>
>
> I had a quick look at https://www.libreoffice.org/ to see if they for
> example
>
> mentionned MS Office or Google docs. The only mention of MS Office I could
> find
>
> is at the bottom of
>
> https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice/ and it is a link to an
> external
>
> site (they do mention the compatibility with Microsft Word, Excel,
> *formats*,
>
> but that's a bit different than comparing to the products themselves).
>
> On http://www.openoffice.org/ similar situation, only mention of MS
> formats,
>
> and for compraisons with MS itself, links to externals reviews from
>
> http://www.openoffice.org/product/reviews.html
>
>
>
> Sandro mentionned GIMP's "like Photoshop, only better" motto but on
>
> https://www.gimp.org/ no mention of Photoshop I could find
>
>
>
> If you go on http://www.pitneybowes.com/us/location-intelligence/
> geographic-information-systems/mapinfo-pro.html,
>
> no mention of ESRI
>
> Same on http://www.hexagongeospatial.com/products/power-portfolio/
> erdas-imagine
>
>
>
> Just trying to decrease the emotional level of the debate with facts ;-)
>
>
>
> --
>
> Spatialys - Geospatial professional services
>
> http://www.spatialys.com
>
>
>
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