Hello, Thanks Alex for this well presented response.
I too have little quibble with Kate’s presentation, but do feel a bit uncomfortable with ESRI’s presence at FOSS4G. Not so much that I do not think they shouldn't be there, but enough that I would like to see them kept on a tight leash. My own experience with ESRI that leads me to doubt their intentions comes from my experiences with ESRI Redlands HQ. I have found their support a bit disingenuous and their business approaches often undermine FOSS efforts. Yet I still deal with them on occasion - mostly in the realm of international standards bodies. Which is kind of interesting in that they have no one on staff who know open standards enough to contribute directly. I find this problematic in the FOSS space because FOSS relies heavily on open standards. Yes ESRI has some open source projects. The one with which I am most familiar is GeoPortal. This is almost a clone of GeoNetwork. They do not engage with GeoNetwork to speak of nor do GN people seem welcome on the GP team. The project seems to be positioned to undermine a well established FOSS4G project. Luckily it is not succeeding. Mostly it succeeds at being a figleaf for saying they support FOSS4G. While they do support GDAL, they do so for selfish reasons - it is a cheap way to get some good functionality that they can charge for. Nothing wrong with that. I was in talks with ESRI VP Satish Sankaran about developing a similar OS package for metadata. He thought Jack D would go for it, as they no longer have this type of expertise in house, but the idea went nowhere. Satish indicated that Jack was only lukewarm to FOSS and GDAL was a bit of an exception that Jack may or may not go for again in the future with other FOSS efforts. In practice, I have found ESRI is quite hostile to FOSS4G software and lukewarm to the standards that underlie it. They are very comfortable with vendor lock in. They claim to support open standards and interoperability, but they do so just enough to check that box. In practice, there are so many bugs in their interoperability that users give up and just buy ESRI. That is by design. ESRI also like to undermine our customer base by badmouthing FOSS4G and offering free licenses to our clients. I am facing this now with Iwi customers of mine. Not bad mouthing me personally but dismissing the value and capability of FOSS4G. They often hook these orgs in with free licenses out of their benevolence (yeah, right) then send a huge maintenance contract after they are totally trapped in the ESRI environment. So yes, I too am cautious about ESRI sponsorship. Because they are hard nosed corporates and will eat our lunch if they possibly can. Nothing personal. Just business. There are times they do contribute meaningfully. I would like to hear about those. ESRI is also a company that we cannot ignore in this line of work. Engagement is important. It is also important to keep a close eye on them because they WILL eat our lunch if they can. I would like to convince them that is not in their best interest. Can’t do that if we do not engage. Ngā Mihi, Byron > On 21 Jan 2025, at 2:06 PM, Alex Leith via Oceania <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hey Folks > > Hope we've all had a great break and are ready to tackle a new year, one that > already has some weird stuff going on in other countries, but hopefully we're > all safe and well and I wish everyone the best. > > So, coming back around to this topic of the elephant. > > First, I acknowledge that you're raising the issue of sponsorship here, > Andrew, but I wanted to share Kate's keynote, because I just rewatched it, > with an open mind and I cannot find anything in it that is offensive and I > don't think there's even any marketing in there. It's about the work that we > do, and calls out the way we should be talking to each other without > divisiveness, which is a message I wholeheartedly endorse. > > So, here's the recording of Kate's talk, for those of you who weren't there: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH-8tseMQRQ&list=PLlZzWSPAR5GY4xk_3QvE-nR1vL2AGQYxI > > There's a question explicitly stated and implicit too, which is "why was Esri > there, and do they belong there" and I think it's actually hard to argue that > they don't. Esri Inc (the US organisation) sponsored at least three past > global FOSS4G events, and they have active open source projects on GitHub > https://github.com/esri/. As Martin noted, they've supported GDAL in a really > big way with cash too. Whether we like it or not, I think they are part of > our community, and I'd like to think that as an open community celebrating > open geospatial things, that we should be open to this truth. > > Now, one more thing from me is that I do acknowledge the bad blood caused by > certain regional distributors and I've heard some really terrible stories, > but I consider the global organisation separate from this (though perhaps not > without some responsibility...). That bad behaviour should be called out when > anyone does it... and I do call things out, and will continue to do so. > > Anyhow, this email is really to provide a bit more context by sharing Kate's > talk, and I hope it helps to show the way that she really did try to talk > about the bigger picture, and talk about the things we do, and I think it > really did hit the mark in terms of what I'd like keynote talks to aim for. > > Kind regards, > > Alex > > On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 at 02:53, Andrew Jeffrey via Oceania > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> Oceania mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania > > > > -- > Alex Leith > m: +61 419 189 050 > https://auspatious.com > <https://auspatious.com/>_______________________________________________ > Oceania mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
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