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

Wed Nov 20 17:12:56 PST 2024

Happy to shoot this particular elephant!

To be honest I have been shat on by certain NZ ESRI partners (note there is no direct ESRI presence in NZ, which may have made a difference) over the years - both as a vendor and as a potential client.  So, I have no particular love for the NZ ESRI partners (although there are some exceptional individuals I talk to occasionally).

I think it is fantastic that everyone is engaging in this conversation (even if my own views may not align with everyone) and we should certainly consider our communities views when looking at sponsorship in the future.

Cheers
Simon

From: Oceania <oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of Carrol Chan via Oceania
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2024 2:08 PM
To: eli <elipuccioni at gmail.com>
Cc: OSgeo - Oceania <oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Oceania] FOSS4G Hobart - Elephant in the room ESRI

Hi all,

Even though I did not attend the conference this year I was definitely a bit taken aback when I saw ESRI as a sponsor and completely understand the feelings of those who have been burned not only by regional distributors, but also strong ESRI advocates. However, I believe our community (especially young and recent graduates) is made up of many 'converted' ESRI users, and in some cases we're basically preaching to the choir. I see this as a positive step, where it opens the opportunity to build a bridge to many individuals on the other side who are just as passionate about their work and looking to belong to a community as awesome as ours. At the end of the day, we all utilise what works for us, whether open or commercial. I definitely sound naive, but as Eli has mentioned, I've also learned to value and trust individuals over large (and sometimes scary) organisations, and I think it would be a step back to close our community off to organisations such as ESRI, which could also make individuals associated feel unwelcome.

This discussion is incredibly valuable, and I hope it continues as it would be useful for the organising committee for next year's global FOSS4G in Auckland!

Vinaka,
Carrol

On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 at 11:12, eli via Oceania <oceania at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:oceania at lists.osgeo.org>> wrote:
Thanks to Andrew and everyone else who has contributed to this discussion. It seems to have stirred quite a reaction in the community, and it’s important to address it.
As Alex pointed out, the committee's decisions are somewhat separate from the board. That said, I personally supported this initiative. Like many of you, I’ve been ‘burned’ by ESRI regional distributors, who in some countries actively try (and sometimes succeed) to poach potential clients. This creates significant damage to small companies like mine, all for a few thousand dollars that likely don’t even cover their Christmas party expenses.
However, I was thrilled to have Kate Fickas as one of our (all female) keynote speakers. In my opinion, she’s an amazing person who genuinely cares about community building, as demonstrated through her Ladies of Landsat group and her ongoing activism on social media. She’s also a long-time friend of FOSS4G OO, having been a keynote speaker at our online 2021 conference, waking up at an ungodly hour to help us deliver quality content during a challenging time. It’s also worth noting that she was selected and agreed to be a keynote speaker for the Hobar conference before anyone considered having ESRI as a sponsor.
From what I understand, Kate played a pivotal role in encouraging ESRI to sponsor the conference, as one of her roles is community building. I recognise that some may view this as an attempt from ESRI to interfere in our community, and I don’t want to be naïve and discard that possibility. Nevertheless, I tend to value and trust individuals over large organizations. My experience has shown that we shouldn’t judge people’s intentions and behaviour based solely on the companies they work for.
We have talented, passionate members in our community who work for ‘questionable’ big companies, and we embrace them. If we cut off ESRI, should we also discuss those other companies? Perhaps, and I’d be happy to contribute to that conversation. But if we accept contributions from other companies, why not try to build a bridge with ESRI, which is undeniably doing good things with GDAL and in the OSM world? Additionally, having ESRI at our conference could attract to the OS world people and countries that primarily use ESRI software, like the Cook Islands.
For these reasons, I was pleased that the committee decided to explore this bridge-building opportunity at the conference. I thoroughly enjoyed Kate’s keynote address and our discussions, as she had many interesting and practical ideas for empowering specific members of our community, including women and non-native English speakers.
That said, what matters most to me is our community. I want it to thrive, grow, and feel comfortable and safe above all else. I’m more than willing to advocate against ESRI sponsorship in the future if the majority feels it’s a threat rather than an opportunity. OO exists because of all of you, and your needs always come first in our decisions. Let’s continue this discussion and see where it leads us.
Cheers,
Elisa

Il giorno gio 21 nov 2024 alle ore 10:32 Alex Leith via Oceania <oceania at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:oceania at lists.osgeo.org>> ha scritto:
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<mailto: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
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