[OSGeo Oceania] FOSS4G Hobart - Elephant in the room ESRI

[John Bryant]

Thanks for bringing it up Andrew J, it hasn't sat especially well with me
either. It was a great event, but it seemed incongruous to have a vendor
selling ArcGIS at a booth at a FOSS4G.



On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 at 21:02, Andrew Harvey via Oceania <
oceania at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Hi Andrew,
>
> Good on you for speaking up about your concerns! I'm sure you're not the
> only one who had this thought.
>
> Speaking from myself here, as far as I'm aware anyone can support the
> conference financially through sponsorship without any other requirements,
> but it would be up to the organising committee and board if they did want
> to add additional conditions for accepting sponsors.
>
> However given ESRI's involvement with OpenStreetMap (
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Esri), in particular their "Esri
> World Imagery" which they provide to OpenStreetMap for tracing features,
> and their OpenStreetMap powered basemaps which help make it easier for
> people to consume OpenStreetMap data. I would say they are very much a
> positive part of the OpenStreetMap community and with FOSS4G SotM Oceania
> being a State of the Map conference the more financial support we have from
> entities who want to help OpenStreetMap the stronger OSGeo Oceania and the
> conference will be.
>
> Andrew Harvey
>
> On Wed, 20 Nov 2024, at 10:07 PM, Andrew Jeffrey via Oceania wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I hope everyone that was able to attend the FOSS4G SOTM Oceania Hobart
> conference had a great time. I'm still very much bummed that I wasn't able
> to make it down there and my only start at the OO conference remains
> Melbourne in 2018. I plan on improving my numbers as best I can into the
> future, but from the outside looking in, it looked like all those that
> attended had a blast - well done conference committee and OO board.
>
> I am writing to the list because I have a question that has been bugging
> me ever since I talked to a colleague who attended the event. That question
> is "What's the deal with ESRI being a sponsor?". I have genuine
> curiosity when it comes to the decision process in having them on board. I
> understand these things take money to put on and the conference needs to
> turn a profit, a healthy conference makes for a healthy OO which allows the
> organisation to do many of the great things that they do. However, I think
> this sponsorship from ESRI should be reconsidered in the future.
>
> Just to be clear, I am not opposed to speakers who work for ESRI coming
> and talking, from all reports the keynote from Kate Fickas was amazing (as
> were all the keynotes from what I hear) and these are the industry people
> that we all crave to hear from - top job in landing that line up! But as
> for sponsorship I feel that ESRI is putting their brand on a community that
> a lot of us turned to when looking for refuge from them.
>
> I acknowledge that my opinion on this is biased as a QGIS advocate and
> trainer. But something about this just feels off! I don't see what's in it
> for the FOSS4G community having ESRI involved in our conferences, to me it
> looks more of a cheap way for them to buy some good news without doing
> anything to improve the relationship with the FOSS4G community.
>
> However, I know I wasn't there, and I could be wrong about the whole
> thing. Maybe the overwhelming opinion is that it's a good thing and this is
> a step in the right direction? I would be interested in hearing what people
> think and even hearing from someone on the conference organising committee
> that has more knowledge about this. Is this something the conference would
> do again? Is there a limit to their involvement? What would have happened
> if they were a platinum sponsor and got the primary logo placement + verbal
> mention at opening and closing of the event?
>
> Thanks
> Andrew
> _______________________________________________
> Oceania mailing list
> Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Oceania mailing list
> Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/attachments/20241120/14fbde87/attachment-0001.htm>