[VisCom] Shareholding, Open Source interests and the OSGeo

[Michael P. Gerlek]

> This effectively means that ESRI is majority shareholder
> of the principal member of an Open Source project.

Tee-hee.  Did anyone tell Jack?

-mpg

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arnulf Christl [mailto:arnulf.christl at ccgis.de] 
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 1:22 PM
> To: dev at visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
> Subject: [VisCom] Shareholding, Open Source interests and the OSGeo
> 
> Hi All,
> bear with me - this is probably unimportant, ambiguous and 
> paranoid but I
> chewed on it for a few days and finally now that it starts to 
> make some
> sense I wanted to share it with fellow paranoids. So pls only 
> read on if
> you are bored and don't have anything real to do.
> 
> The German version is not very explicit in stating "hat ... sich
> beteiligt" meaing it "acquired some shares". The English 
> translation of
> the news item explicitly says a "majority interest" which in my
> understanding makes a big difference:
> http://www.conterra.de/en/misc/news/detail.asp?ID=373
> 
> A little background: The business conterra baed in Muenster, 
> Germany is
> gib time vendor and partner of ESRI (>12 years). Recently 
> they started the
> Open Source project 52N (security proxy, sensor web, etc. GPL) a
> reasonable reaction to many German public administrations wanting a
> transparent (Open Source) security solution. The business model is
> somewhat complicated in keeping a core of the software under 
> the direct
> influence of one company rendering the construction 52N 
> incompatible to
> OSGeo principles. But find out yourself and comment, maybe I am just
> overnoid again, you know...
> http://www.52north.org/index.php?faq#7
> 
> I like this one, its kind of funny:
> "(9) Does a dual licensing model bother the developers of 
> 52°North software?
> Principally, yes."
> 
> :-)
> 
> So far so good. This effectively means that ESRI is majority 
> shareholder
> of the principal member of an Open Source project. Anybody 
> wanting to talk
> to them to find out more about how this works, come to the Open Source
> Park of the OSGeo at the Intergeo 2005 (they requested a 
> project booth two
> days before the above news item was announced. Now you teel me - am I
> being paranoid? :-)
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Intergeo_2006#Professional_Ser
> vice_Provider_Exhibitors
> 
> Best regards,
> -- 
> Arnulf Christl
> http://www.ccgis.de
> 
> 
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