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

[Alex Leith]

Hi Andrew

Thanks for raising this, and I'm glad we're having the discussion.

The local organising committee for FOSS4G SotM Oceania operates
independently of the Board, even though some on the committee may be Board
members. And as a committee, we talked a lot about decisions on keynotes,
making sure we were bringing the right influence to the event, the right
"vibe". We talked less about sponsors, really, and that was mostly
delegated to the sponsorship team (which was mostly Nick Forbes-Smith and
me).

So, there are two separate items here, as you note. Kate Fickas was invited
as a keynote speaker because she's been an incredible advocate for women
and I think her keynote was really good. She spoke about specific
initiatives, like how she worked with others in the USGS to get Virginia T.
Norwood recognition as the person who actually invented Landsat!

The Esri sponsorship came up separately, though I think Kate may have
encouraged it. And Esri were able to justify their sponsorship internally
due to their support for the SotM component of our conference. Kate
acknowledged in her keynote that Esri uses open source software in their
applications. It's worth noting that Esri supported the GDAL Barnraising
efforts in a significant way (https://gdalbarn.com/.)

Now, I know that some have been burned by Esri resellers doing things that
are not good, and there's a lot of hard feelings around. I don't discount
that at all. But I feel as a community we should keep the gate open. We
need support from business to make the conference happen, and we'll need it
for the global event next year in a big way. Other organisations that may
sponsor may or may have imperfect reputations in some areas, but good
people work in all of these organisations. I believe it’s reasonable to
welcome sponsorship from any organisation, provided they agree to our code
of conduct and other reasonable conditions set by the community.

My honest personal take is that we should expect sponsors to not be
anti-open source and not be anti-competitive. But I think we should hold
ourselves to similar standards. The era of militant anti-proprietary
software movements has largely passed, and in many ways, we’ve already won.
As I mentioned during the “pitch a future” session at the conference, the
open movement feels inevitable. Microsoft’s journey from labeling open
source a “virus” to embracing it wholeheartedly is a prime example. Should
we have rejected Microsoft's contributions to past events?

Kind regards,

On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 at 02:53, Andrew Jeffrey via Oceania <
oceania at lists.osgeo.org> 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
>


-- 
*Alex Leith*
m: +61 419 189 050
https://auspatious.com
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