[QGIS-Developer] Letter form to Schools, Universities and Institutions against free(as beer) licenced SW

[Tobias Wendorff]

Hi Luigi,

Am Mo, 22.10.2018, 20:04 schrieb Luigi Pirelli:
> In Spain, but I suppone in every place of the world, there are many
> schools, universities or institutions that are dumped with free
>  licences to their users. This happen especially in school
> and univerisities.

there already is a change in this. I'm from North Rhine-Westphalia in
Germany. Nearly all universities are part of federal state's licence
program of a well known US-GIS-provider. But some universities seem
to pay more than others. When I've started spatial planning about 13
years ago, GIS license was free for everyone. But it got harder and
harder to get one, since the fee of the shared licensed raised. Right
now, GIS is limited to either your final paper or you have to proof
that you need it for a semester's course. In both variants, it's
limited to a year.

But - like I said - there is a move to free GIS software. About
8-13 years ago, the well known GIS was used about everywhere beside
F*E and M*pInf* (and some special ones with CAD of course). But
because of the new fee and the CRAZY GREAT new abilities of FOSS,
I'm can see much more corporations move to QGIS.

Really, I've worked for a lot of corporations and I've visited lots
of lectures at several universities. Things are going open. There
are much courses about "free beer / free software" (the philosophics)
and GIS courses are moving from A*GIS to QGIS.

Another good point: Some teachers in Germany are civil servants.
They're not allowed to get gifts from corporations, like free courses
or whatever. Whenever teachers got into contact with QGIS in university,
I see them using it at school, too. But for them, one thing is
important: the GUI should not change too much. That's the big benefit
of "old style" A*GIS: it looks equal since about v8.x ;)

Best regards,
Tobias

ps: Sorry for my bad English. I'm having a fish sandwich in one hand.