[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2018 sponsorship

Mon Feb 26 09:23:50 PST 2018

Folks,
we have seriously discussed this over and again to the point of boredom.
Still, I am happy that the topic comes up again and again because it
shows that people are alert. Good.

Having said that, we need to be as precise as possible in our terms and
definitions. Every now and then this blurs over.

Therefore allow me to give a quick primer: When we say "Open Source" and
"Free Software" we basically mean the same thing: Software that is
licensed under one of the 40+ officially respected licenses ranging from
the GNU GPL over BSD and MIT to the WTFPL.

Please refrain from using the term "Open Software" because it is
imprecise and only good to confuse people. Do not say "closed Software"
either because it may imply that it is more secure (like "locked" and
"safe"). Most evilly wrong: Never say "Commercial Software" because it
connotes that we cannot do business with Open Source and that commercial
enterprises cannot use it to make money which is both wrong and hurts
commercial development of Open Source businesses. The opposite to Free
and Open Source Software Licenses are proprietary licenses (and believe
me, proprietary vendors hate this term).

We should not make the impression that there is no business to be done
with Open Source software. People have to understand that we do not
charge fees for licenses and give the software away for free - but that
we do charge fees for developing and maintaining it, when we actually
"do" something. This can be maintenance, development, training,
SLA-contracts, implementing the newest standard or whatever else may
come up, you know how 95% of IT-revenue is done. Only a fraction of 5%
really come from proprietary licenses, not more!

Next: When we say "Open Source" and "Free Software" we also often "mean"
a lot of additional things. One very dear to OSGeo is "community based"
and "good governance". But this is not necessarily part of the license!
It is only our interpretation of how Open Source should be done (and I
totally believe in it).

We should also be clear that anybody can use and support Free and Open
Source Software for any purpose. This explicitly includes Esri and
Oracle and Microsoft and all the other proprietary vendors. And why not?

How do we deal with them at a conference? Like any other business. If
they like we even invite them to a plenary talk, get a versed speaker
from our trenches and let him or her publicly dissect all their
proprietary arguments. This gives Open Source a much better voice than
to just to ban them. They know we are so good at doing this that you
will even have a hard time getting anyone on a plenary at all.

We have also publicly invited proprietary brethren to participate in
performance shoot-outs and the result was invariable showing how good we
are. This is much cooler and shows much more self-efficacy than denying
entry to anybody.

Autodesk has tried to go Open Source and they basically failed. But they
funded the fledgling OSGeo Foundation and now look at where we are.

It appears that we are still not done educating folks who are still
stuck on proprietary stacks.

Lastly, how do we prevent an evil proprietary vendor from luring our
conference attendees into believing that proprietary software is better
than Open Source? Well, let them give a talk and if they say anything
stupid or even wrong about Open Source they will be ripped to little
pieces by the audience, believe me.

Thanks for listening.

Seven

Am 26.02.2018 um 17:03 schrieb Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX):
>
> Sergio,
>
> I for one am delighted to hear your well expressed concern. In point
> of fact, ESRI certainly has no real interest in open source. They are
> there to make as much money as possible and don’t mind playing rough
> to get it. That is not to suggest we cannot find ways to live and even
> work together. Though like you said and said well “This approach
> should make OSGeo more alert.” On another but related issue, I am
> still curious as to where ESRI and the OS community are on LiDAR
> format and compression as ^one^ open standard.
>
> -Patrick
>
>  
>
> *From:*Discuss [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of
> *SERGIO ACOSTAYLARA
> *Sent:* Monday, February 26, 2018 7:03 AM
> *To:* María Arias de Reyna; André Cruvinel Resende
> *Cc:* OSGeo Discussions
> *Subject:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2018 sponsorship
>
>  
>
> Stefano, certainly you are NOT the only one. In the past I have
> expressed my concern about this fact. It's as if Monsanto were
> sponsoring an organic food event. I don't think ESRI (or Google or IBM
> or others) approaches OSGeo innocently. This approach should make
> OSGeo more alert. And distrust their intentions. I remember that some
> years ago ESRI did not let gvSIG people even assist an ESRI
> conference. And now what has changed? That the FOSS4G movement is now
> "cool". So it makes these companies present themselves as OS ("we
> support the OS movement, we even sponsor their events", even "we are
> OS") and it is easier for them to enter certain places (later it is
> more difficult for them to leave). Maybe these companies should be
> asked something more than money in exchange for sponsoring the FOSS4G.
> And see how far they can get with that support to the FOSS4G movement...
>
> 
>
> Sergio Acosta y Lara
>
> Departamento de Geomática
>
> Dirección Nacional de Topografía
>
> Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas
>
> URUGUAY
>
> (598)29157933 ints. 20329/20330
>
> http://geoportal.mtop.gub.uy/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *De:*Discuss <discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> <mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>> en nombre de María Arias de
> Reyna <delawen at gmail.com <mailto:delawen at gmail.com>>
> *Enviado:* lunes, 26 de febrero de 2018 4:34
> *Para:* André Cruvinel Resende
> *Cc:* OSGeo Discussions
> *Asunto:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2018 sponsorship
>
>  
>
> Hi,
>
> I share your fears. But on the other hand, the list of sponsors is not
> closed for this year, I know for sure there are open source companies
> that are still pending to be shown there. GeoCat for example, being a
> small SME in comparison, will do the yearly effort to be a key sponsor
> proving that open source companies support FOSS4G events.
>
> You know (because I have been tiring on this subject) that I am
> completely against openwashing. And I will not be comfortable (and
> protest) if FOSS4G is used as a platform to promote closed source
> software. If I see a track full of selling closed architectures and
> software or some keynote talking about the greatness of closed
> software, I will be angry. But until now, we have had closed source
> companies sponsoring OSGeo and the "worst" thing we have had is some
> talk with a lot of openwashing that made us laugh. No big harm, but
> useful to reopen the debate and refresh terms.
>
> Look at it like this: If a closed source software company (and I won't
> say ESRI here, because we have more examples, don't focus only on one)
> wants to sponsor an FLOSS conference... look at it as a small fee for
> all the work they are reusing from our open side. Is it the only
> budget they spend on open source? Is it because they want to get close
> to the community and keep in touch with the state of the art software
> in the industry? Great! If anything, I would be more worried if they
> had no interest in FLOSS. This means we are an important piece of the
> industry and they want to be involved, either to -steal- research
> about our way of working, our ideas or whatever we have.
>
> Big companies with closed software history can't change from one day
> to another. Can you imagine Microsoft announcing Windows is going to
> be FLOSS? Would be insane and dangerous (if a code is going to be
> FLOSS, it should be FLOSS from the beginning to avoid big security
> holes in the open that come inherently on closed software). Let them
> get closer and, maybe in the future, they will become real FLOSS
> advocators.
>
> While they "only" sponsor and maybe promote the ¿little? job they do
> on FLOSS, I am fine. If they want to cross that line and start a
> conversation about how great closed software is, then we will have to
> stop them.
>
> Regards,
>
> María.
>
>  
>
>  
>
> On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 2:49 AM, André Cruvinel Resende
> <andrecr at gmail.com <mailto:andrecr at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Folks,
>
>  
>
> We have had this fear in the past.
>
>  
>
> I remember when Autodesk decided to open Mapguide and some of us were
> furious and upset and worried about our community's influence and
> decisions.
>
>  
>
> It seems that in the end It was not that important and It does not
> kill Mapserver. 
>
>  
>
> Good and open week. (And mind too)
>
>  
>
> https://mapguide.osgeo.org/about.html.
>
>
>
> André Cruvinel.
>
>
>
> Em 25 de fev de 2018 7:11 PM, "Jody Garnett" <jody.garnett at gmail.com
> <mailto:jody.garnett at gmail.com>> escreveu:
>
> I do not think of it as just an emotive response - some business
> models do not match our ideals as an organization (requirement to
> purchase a platform subscription for services, or an API key for data
> use). While some organizations match our ideals, but I do not like the
> ethics (dumping software to opensource as part of an exit strategy).
>
> Both these approaches use open source as a tool, but to enable
> behaviour that is not necessarily collaborative. The free-and-open end
> of the open source pool is working on this, but it is a big pool and
> we want to help everyone.
>
> I see our role as changing the the playing field over time so that
> these business models do perform as well as the ones that embrace,
> contribute to and leverage open source.
>
> On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 1:59 PM <bradh at frogmouth.net
> <mailto:bradh at frogmouth.net>> wrote:
>
>     Indeed GDAL/OGR uses some ESRI code, example:
>
>     https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/a1df7cb9df2fe3cbcfac974b434b01ac6a1946e5/gdal/frmts/mrf/JPEG_band.cpp#L21
>
>      
>
>     If you don’t want anyone with competing products, it’ll be a short
>     list, and somewhat difficult to justify (e.g. OSGeo has lots of
>     software that is mostly developed and tested against Oracle’s
>     Java, but Oracle Spatial is an alternative to PostGIS). If you
>     don’t want anyone who does patents, it’ll exclude most of the big
>     IT companies.
>
>      
>
>     Is this just an emotive response?
>
>      
>
>     Brad
>
>      
>
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>
>
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> -- 
>
> -- 
>
> Jody Garnett
>
>
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