[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2018 sponsorship

Mon Feb 26 10:09:48 PST 2018

Arnulf,

Personally, I'm annoyed with that response - I was halfway through
responding and you've articulated my personal thoughts in a much more
concise and good manner - thank you!! :-)

All,

I would request people to engage as much as possible at this years (and
subsequent years!) FOSS4G. We have an exciting program and we are bringing
together as diverse a community as possible - this year's FOSS4G is in Dar
es Salaam - our mission is to raise awareness of our community and provide
the fullest opportunity of our community to geospatially enable our planet
in the future. With the future that we have, over 1 billion people in
extreme poverty, unchecked urban population growth, climate change and
other challenges, our time is now - we can all work together to deliver the
best possible outcomes for FOSS4G and OSGeo.

Cheers,

Mark

On 26 February 2018 at 12:23, Seven (aka Arnulf) <seven at arnulf.us> wrote:

> 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
> <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> en nombre de María Arias
> de Reyna <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>
> 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>
> 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> wrote:
>
> Indeed GDAL/OGR uses some ESRI code, example:
>
> https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/a1df7cb9df2fe3cbcfac974b434b01
> ac6a1946e5/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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