[Marketing] OSGeo benefits

[Jo Walsh]

On 27/04/2010 22:08, Paul Ramsey wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Cameron Shorter
> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Yes, Open Source licenses are free, but when promoted that way, Open Source
>> often comes across as being "cheap". Also, the Total Cost of Ownership for
>> Open Source and Proprietary, when compared head to head, is often similar,
>> or even favours the proprietary software.
>
> The word isn't "free" or "cheap", it's "less expensive".

The UK public sector is in a dreadful debt crisis, less is good.

The stuff about Total Cost of Ownership of free and open source software 
always seemed a bit FUD-like to me - is it really evidence based over 
the longer term and where is the evidence? What exactly is being 
measured when it can get into subtle things like saving on staff 
replacement cost?

Venka right, respect, status, shifgrethor, it *is* important, and has 
been a big motivator for a lot of the government open data projects we 
are seeing now...

Cameron thanks for reinforcing the investment-in-community point - i 
plan to emphasise gvSIG and Geomajas as projects that have origins in 
enlightened public administrations - i would love to see the numbers 
that added up to "let's develop our own desktop GIS in house rather than 
buy software licenses"...

Hey, this conversation is a lot more fun than making PowerPoint slides.

cheers,


jo

-- 
Jo Walsh

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