[Geo4All] [OSGeo-Discuss] Tackling the Open Source dilemma

[b.j.kobben at utwente.nl]

Dear Henrique,

On your site http://www.volksnav.de/ I find information about various kinds of licences, and mention that you hold patents for it, and that the licensee's responsibilities include "payment of the fees". And I cannot seem to find/use the code itself. So in what way are your apps "Open Source"...?

yours,


--
Barend Köbben
 

On 27/11/2017, 09:14, "GeoForAll on behalf of Munich Orientation Convention" <geoforall-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of volksnav at volksnav.de> wrote:

    Hi Cameron,
     
    your open arguments are correct but aren’t the whole truth: after many years of hard pioneer work, the Munich city administration has recently decided to abandone
     Limux – see Wikipedia - and return to MS. 
     
    This shows that - for some bosses - reliable standards could have a higher priority than open standards.
    
    Another truth: because actual open location codes are either too simple or too academic, many corporations are adopting location codes based on 3 words (!?). Even
     universities promote such PROPRIETARY silliness. Until now, the open source dilemma impeded OsGEO etc. to even think about proposing an own simple answer to simple questions like “where is the cow?”, so the open evangelists continue to promote “here!”, lat/lon,
     square grids, post codes, names etc. 
     
    I’ve developed an orientation standard which also gives simple answers on indoor, urban and global levels. The app “volksnav” is available in all stores and considers
     500 cities incl. indoor Oktoberfest. The app will always be free, including all educational tools. Other than today, children, students, average people etc. can discover (magic!) that it is possible to divide the horizon into 12 directions like the blind,
     soldiers, pilots, and boy scouts do.
     
    If the source would be open, it automatically would generate hundreds of “better” standards, destroying the goal. The only solution is the forgotten method “symbolical
     fees” and I would be more than glad if you Cameron would dare to make the first step to demystify this method and help to consider it as almostOpen, compatible to the – also important – merit principle.
     
    Henrique