Stefano, certainly you are NOT the only one. In the past I have expressed my
concern about this fact. It's as if Monsanto were sponsoring an organic food
event. I don't think ESRI (or Google or IBM or others) approaches OSGeo
innocently. This approach should make OSGeo more alert. And distrust their
intentions. I remember that some years ago ESRI did not let gvSIG people even
assist an ESRI conference. And now what has changed? That the FOSS4G movement
is now "cool". So it makes these companies present themselves as OS ("we
support the OS movement, we even sponsor their events", even "we are OS") and
it is easier for them to enter certain places (later it is more difficult for
them to leave). Maybe these companies should be asked something more than money
in exchange for sponsoring the FOSS4G. And see how far they can get with that
support to the FOSS4G movement...
Sergio Acosta y Lara
Departamento de Geomática
Dirección Nacional de Topografía
Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas
URUGUAY
(598)29157933 ints. 20329/20330
http://geoportal.mtop.gub.uy/
________________________________
De: Discuss <[email protected]> en nombre de María Arias de Reyna
<[email protected]>
Enviado: lunes, 26 de febrero de 2018 4:34
Para: André Cruvinel Resende
Cc: OSGeo Discussions
Asunto: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2018 sponsorship
Hi,
I share your fears. But on the other hand, the list of sponsors is not closed
for this year, I know for sure there are open source companies that are still
pending to be shown there. GeoCat for example, being a small SME in comparison,
will do the yearly effort to be a key sponsor proving that open source
companies support FOSS4G events.
You know (because I have been tiring on this subject) that I am completely
against openwashing. And I will not be comfortable (and protest) if FOSS4G is
used as a platform to promote closed source software. If I see a track full of
selling closed architectures and software or some keynote talking about the
greatness of closed software, I will be angry. But until now, we have had
closed source companies sponsoring OSGeo and the "worst" thing we have had is
some talk with a lot of openwashing that made us laugh. No big harm, but useful
to reopen the debate and refresh terms.
Look at it like this: If a closed source software company (and I won't say ESRI
here, because we have more examples, don't focus only on one) wants to sponsor
an FLOSS conference... look at it as a small fee for all the work they are
reusing from our open side. Is it the only budget they spend on open source? Is
it because they want to get close to the community and keep in touch with the
state of the art software in the industry? Great! If anything, I would be more
worried if they had no interest in FLOSS. This means we are an important piece
of the industry and they want to be involved, either to -steal- research about
our way of working, our ideas or whatever we have.
Big companies with closed software history can't change from one day to
another. Can you imagine Microsoft announcing Windows is going to be FLOSS?
Would be insane and dangerous (if a code is going to be FLOSS, it should be
FLOSS from the beginning to avoid big security holes in the open that come
inherently on closed software). Let them get closer and, maybe in the future,
they will become real FLOSS advocators.
While they "only" sponsor and maybe promote the ¿little? job they do on FLOSS,
I am fine. If they want to cross that line and start a conversation about how
great closed software is, then we will have to stop them.
Regards,
María.
On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 2:49 AM, André Cruvinel Resende
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Folks,
We have had this fear in the past.
I remember when Autodesk decided to open Mapguide and some of us were furious
and upset and worried about our community's influence and decisions.
It seems that in the end It was not that important and It does not kill
Mapserver.
Good and open week. (And mind too)
https://mapguide.osgeo.org/about.html.
André Cruvinel.
Em 25 de fev de 2018 7:11 PM, "Jody Garnett"
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> escreveu:
I do not think of it as just an emotive response - some business models do not
match our ideals as an organization (requirement to purchase a platform
subscription for services, or an API key for data use). While some
organizations match our ideals, but I do not like the ethics (dumping software
to opensource as part of an exit strategy).
Both these approaches use open source as a tool, but to enable behaviour that
is not necessarily collaborative. The free-and-open end of the open source pool
is working on this, but it is a big pool and we want to help everyone.
I see our role as changing the the playing field over time so that these
business models do perform as well as the ones that embrace, contribute to and
leverage open source.
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 1:59 PM
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Indeed GDAL/OGR uses some ESRI code, example:
https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/a1df7cb9df2fe3cbcfac974b434b01ac6a1946e5/gdal/frmts/mrf/JPEG_band.cpp#L21
If you don’t want anyone with competing products, it’ll be a short list, and
somewhat difficult to justify (e.g. OSGeo has lots of software that is mostly
developed and tested against Oracle’s Java, but Oracle Spatial is an
alternative to PostGIS). If you don’t want anyone who does patents, it’ll
exclude most of the big IT companies.
Is this just an emotive response?
Brad
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