[Geo4All] [OSGeo-Discuss] Is it possible for properitery GIS vendor to market thier properitery product as Open ?

Carl Reed carl.n.reed at gmail.com
Sat Mar 25 09:02:08 PDT 2017


I would also be interested. Have not read the entire thread yet. That said,
most (all?) large app and software providers now offer open APIs. Check out
Google, Twitter, Amazon and on and on. These APIs are "open" because anyone
can implement, use, develop, etc. You could even use the API definition to
implement your own API against your own back end servers. Based on the
license type (often Apache) the caveat is that you could not sell that
"new" API.

Now, of course, all of these open APIs access one or more back end server
apps or services and there may are may not be a fee for using those apps or
services. Most of these software and infrastructure companies allow limited
free use of the back end service and/or geospatial data access.

Obviously, there is some continuum of what the market says about what is
open and what is not.

So, if the API is open and the client is free and there is free (but
limited) access to proprietary services and data, is this open?

Interesting question :-)

Cheers

Carl

On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 1:21 AM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com>
wrote:

> And here is the biz model definition, I would be interested if the
> original poster can clarify in which context the word was used :)
> On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 9:55 PM Ravi Kumar <manarajahmundry2015 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This is a good thread, and let us discuss to derive a 'Note', for those
>> facing 'Questions', evangelising Free and Open GIS.
>>
>> I suggest this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_platform for many who
>> wish to know.
>> May be we can have a page on, 'OSGeo Wiki' on this topic.
>> Cheers
>> Ravi Kumar
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 1:45 AM, 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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> Jody Garnett
>
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