Brilliantly expressed Jeroen, thank you Building businesses around OSGeo is a sign of our success and our future sustainability. We should welcome business involvement not feel threatened by it. ______ Steven
> On 12 May 2016, at 08:17, Jeroen Ticheler <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Max, > Good to have a summarized discussion about what OSGeo is. Let me only react > on the business side you discussed. I absolutely disagree with what you are > saying ;-) I'll explain: > > People can only contribute voluntary (or professional) time if at some point > they earn a salary that pays their bills. And if businesses didn't flourish, > there wouldn't be governments, universities etcetera because there wouldn't > be money for governments to fund itself nor academia. I've been a government > employee for many years and I'm convinced governments and academia are > indispensable in a well developed society. Some things are better done there > than in business. BUT, many other things are better done in business. I often > see a lot of distrust from the public sector towards the business sector, > including in your expressed view. This is harmful to OSGeo! If I can send my > whole company to FOSS4G to present our work, provide free workshops, sponsor > AND learn this is a highly valuable thing in my opinion. It is ALL about > individuals contributing and learning and sharing knowledge equally. > > I have spend many years in Africa, both as a child and as an adult. As a kid > I've even travelled on food trucks delivering aid in refugee camps. I don't > need many words to describe the impression that made on me: people (Tuaregs > in my case) that lost their cattle and thus their work, suffered deeply, but > still had their pride and served us tea on the edge of the desert. They had > nowhere to go and were forced to abandon their nomad lifestyle to settle as > farmers on land that was unsuitable for agriculture. You can't sink much > further in life. > This led me to work at the UN and then change to business because I thinks > that's where the real difference can be made if done right. One of my main > objectives is to develop knowledge that is non-exclusive and also helps those > living in less favorable economic conditions. Technology won't be of much > help to those Tuaregs, but I'm always looking at opportunities to get some > company kickstarted there (hopefully under the GeoCat umbrella) so solid > commercial activity can be developed locally. And for that, I won't ignore > the commercial interests I have because I'm convinced in doing so that the > development of a local company has the largest chance of success. And thus > this company can contribute to the lives of its employees and pay (the least > possible, but proper amount of) taxes to its government. When successful, > also those employees could attend a local or global OSGeo event. Every > successful company can contribute significantly to improving the lives of > individuals. And open source is a great vehicle for this. FOSS4G and OSGeo > are great vehicles for this too. Companies must be able to benefit from them, > because it is the people in those companies and their families that benefit. > And it is government and academia that can then pay salaries to you. > > NEVER IGNORE COMPANIES AGAIN IN OSGEO OR FOSS4G! THEY ARE NOT A THREAT, THEY > ARE A NECESSITY. > > Warm hearted greetings, > Jeroen > >> Op 11 mei 2016 om 11:01 heeft massimiliano cannata >> <[email protected]> het volgende geschreven: >> >> BUSINESS AND OSGEO(EU) >> OSGeo is an organisation of people. Not of sectors or groups or parties. Of >> course people belong to categories and this tend to influence the way they >> see the world. For this reason people tend to contribute to the community >> for their competence and interest within committees or working groups. It is >> not the mandate of OSGeo making lobbies or acquire mandates. To me OSGeo >> should get together great projects and people to offer the world the >> possibility of advance and improve the life of people. I know It is a bit >> exaggerated but when i think of open source i see it as a mean of equity: >> like making accessible food and sanitation and drinking water and medicine >> to everyone in the world. Making tools for a better governance available to >> all. >> OSGeo is about mutually sharing experiences, ideas, solutions not building >> business. For this LocationTech which is a community of companies / entities >> I understood is more suited. >> So my vision is OSGeo focused on people not on companies or groups. >> Splitting the community is not an advancement but a loss of value. > _______________________________________________ > Conference_dev mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
