RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models
Just a short response, The best reception I ever got about open source in government was by saving a project (in the gov) a measureable amount of money (enough to have someone take a risk on saving money anyhow) and by drasticaly increasing productivity. This was achieve by moving from an older and well known image processing suite to using GDAL for a repeatable and scripted process. Increase of productivity by a factor of 12 (eg one person was now doing the same work achieved by 12), and savings of over 100K in licensing fees multiplied by each year the project progresses. The costs of a few months of in-house development quickly paid off. Managers always like going back to their boss and saying they're ahead of schedule. Now infrastructure let us down because we over taxed the network and filled up storage arrays way too quick and the project never scaled to accommodate. We moved to a "just in time" model. However the software, a FOSS solution, was not to blame. Poor architecture and scaling was. This success, however, led to enough trust to consider supporting some FOSS development. The contractor let us down though and failed to deliver. This was the quickest way for the once believers to loose faith and trust. So there is an example how FOSS is great, best of breed, superior, less expensive and a FOSS development company over one small contract can reverse the progress. Inhouse development of a FOSS solution worked, external contracting failed. Just one perspective. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 19:15 To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models Markus wrote: " I have to say that I am a bit surprised that I got the impression (from the remarks by Paul and others) that the same is not possible in Northern America!?" I'm no expert, but I think most people involved in FOSS development in America would agree that the political climate for FOSS in this nation can be very hostile. Microsoft is a very powerful lobby, and ESRI is fairly entrenched in the government world. (This may not be the case in some universities and far flung government offices, but it is definitely the rule.) >From my own experience with other developers from OpenJUMP, which are mostly >outside of the United States, support of FOSS by European governments is much >stronger than here in America. I find this somewhat ironic, since it seems our >publicly funded geospatial data is much more accessible than in Europe. Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dr. Markus Lupp Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 4:03 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models Gilberto and all, I would like to give some comments on this from the perspective of a GIS company with an Open Source business model, I hope you will find them of interest. lat/lon was founded in the year 2000 as a private company (in Germany) and had from its beginning an open source business model. We do consulting and software development for GIS projects, mainly in the context of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). Most of the project solutions we develop are based on deegree, a library tailored for interoperable SDIs that was originally developed together with Bonn University. We compete with other vendors, proprietary and open source based alike, on the same grounds (software quality, price, quality of support and so on). With each project we do, we develop deegree a step further, we have no source of funding that does not come out of projects we have to apply for first. I do not want to go into too much detail, but we do pretty good, which means we can pay our bills and have continuous growth year by year. Also there is a number of other companies by now that are developing solutions based on deegree, some of these companies are based in neighbouring countries. Now to the question of government intervention. After reading Gilberto's mail I asked myself what is meant by this term? In Germany (where lat/lon so far is mainly active) there is no official policy supporting open source software. There is a number of guidelines that suggest so, but all public bodies are free to do how they like. But there is a growing support from people in governmental agencies who decided by themselves that they want to use more open source software (Gilberto - is this what you mean by indirect support?). Still - as I said - there is not any kind of "protectionism" for Free Software. We (and other companies doing the same job) have to convience our clients that what we offer is good value for money. So from my point of view it is possible to compete in the GIS market using an open source business model without any high-level government intervention (although it surely helps). Perhaps Germany is special i
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models
David, Thanks for that example. I typically work with GIS in "single-desktop"situations, and I never really consider the problems of scaling a custom GIS solution over a network might bring. I appreciate the ability to use scripting to increase productivity. It is something we try to do with our CAD work whenever possible. Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sampson, David Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 5:40 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models Just a short response, The best reception I ever got about open source in government was by saving a project (in the gov) a measureable amount of money (enough to have someone take a risk on saving money anyhow) and by drasticaly increasing productivity. This was achieve by moving from an older and well known image processing suite to using GDAL for a repeatable and scripted process. Increase of productivity by a factor of 12 (eg one person was now doing the same work achieved by 12), and savings of over 100K in licensing fees multiplied by each year the project progresses. The costs of a few months of in-house development quickly paid off. Managers always like going back to their boss and saying they're ahead of schedule. Now infrastructure let us down because we over taxed the network and filled up storage arrays way too quick and the project never scaled to accommodate. We moved to a "just in time" model. However the software, a FOSS solution, was not to blame. Poor architecture and scaling was. This success, however, led to enough trust to consider supporting some FOSS development. The contractor let us down though and failed to deliver. This was the quickest way for the once believers to loose faith and trust. So there is an example how FOSS is great, best of breed, superior, less expensive and a FOSS development company over one small contract can reverse the progress. Inhouse development of a FOSS solution worked, external contracting failed. Just one perspective. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 19:15 To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models Markus wrote: " I have to say that I am a bit surprised that I got the impression (from the remarks by Paul and others) that the same is not possible in Northern America!?" I'm no expert, but I think most people involved in FOSS development in America would agree that the political climate for FOSS in this nation can be very hostile. Microsoft is a very powerful lobby, and ESRI is fairly entrenched in the government world. (This may not be the case in some universities and far flung government offices, but it is definitely the rule.) >From my own experience with other developers from OpenJUMP, which are mostly >outside of the United States, support of FOSS by European governments is much >stronger than here in America. I find this somewhat ironic, since it seems our >publicly funded geospatial data is much more accessible than in Europe. Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dr. Markus Lupp Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 4:03 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models Gilberto and all, I would like to give some comments on this from the perspective of a GIS company with an Open Source business model, I hope you will find them of interest. lat/lon was founded in the year 2000 as a private company (in Germany) and had from its beginning an open source business model. We do consulting and software development for GIS projects, mainly in the context of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). Most of the project solutions we develop are based on deegree, a library tailored for interoperable SDIs that was originally developed together with Bonn University. We compete with other vendors, proprietary and open source based alike, on the same grounds (software quality, price, quality of support and so on). With each project we do, we develop deegree a step further, we have no source of funding that does not come out of projects we have to apply for first. I do not want to go into too much detail, but we do pretty good, which means we can pay our bills and have continuous growth year by year. Also there is a number of other companies by now that are developing solutions based on deegree, some of these companies are based in neighbouring countries. Now to the question of government intervention. After reading Gilberto's mail I asked myself what is meant by this term? In Germany (where lat/lon so far is mainly active) there is no official policy supporting open source software. There is a number of guidelines that suggest so, but all public bodies are free to do how they like. But there is a growing support from people in gov
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models
IMO. Gilberto, > > In 2003, I did a F00S4G market survey and published the > results as a chapter of a US National Academy of Sciences book: > "Open Source GIS Software: Myths and Realities" > . > > We analysed 70 FOSS4G software projects taken from the > FreeGIS list, and divided them into three categories: > networked products (e.g. GRASS), corporate products (e.g., PostGIS) > and individual products (e.g., CAVOR). From each product, > we assessed its maturity, level of support and functionality. > This is an interesting read. Are you aware of any follow up work? I'm particularly interested in perceptions of the impact that OSGeo may be having as an umbrella organisation. wrt Government involvement: - as Frank suggests, I suspect that governments would have more impact supporting a central group of applications rather than each one rolling their own. The problem is assessing and picking the appropriate applications and projects to support. - governments often have a tender process that they need to follow when implementing new systems. If OS products aren't proposed or well supported, they often don't get looked at. - many governments also have a large investment (in time, training, money, processes and data) in existing proprietary products and can't easily switch arbitrarily to a new product. - Having said this, I'm aware of many organisations that are disatisfied with the status quo and looking to the longer term to reduce vendor lock-in. One way that people are looking to do this is to specify support for Open Standards (e.g. ISO 19100 series and OGC) as a key requirement. Currently OSGeo projects offer some of the better support for these standards. I hope that this continues (though I have noticed some derisive comments about standards w). wrt the Brazillian TerraLib toolkit mentioned in your paper: - I've had a quick look at the web site. The product appears to be quite mature and functional. - Has anyone from this list had a technical look at the products and like to share their observations? Can they be integrated with OSGeo apps? Do they support OGC standards etc? Bruce Bannerman Notice: This email and any attachments may contain information that is personal, confidential, legally privileged and/or copyright.No part of it should be reproduced, adapted or communicated without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the recipient to check for and remove viruses. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by return email, delete it from your system and destroy any copies. You are not authorised to use, communicate or rely on the information contained in this email. Please consider the environment before printing this email. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models
Dear Markus, Frank, and all I will try to dwell a bit further on some issues raised by Frank and Markus. Sorry for the long message. Certain issues deserve it... Message from Frank Warmerdam Comments from Gilberto (Frank) (...) But, I am left with the impression that the same model applied widely by many national or state governments would result in a lot of duplication. I'd like to explore models where governments at different levels cooperate and contribute to joint development. Good point. Governments have a propensity to fund local development, since they are creating jobs. The risk, as you point out, is duplication. To avoid this trend, we need a coordination board at the international level, that can assure national governments that their interests are taken into account. The ideal would be a UN-supported effort. However, developed nations have blocked attempts for United Nations agencies to coordinate widespread adoption of FOSS (e.g., at the World Summit on the Information Society). Currently, OSGEO and OSC play an important international role. OSGEO allows us to connect (as we´re doing right now). OSC gives users hope of avoiding the lock-in effect and thus reduces some of the FUD effect. But we should recognize that national government institutions are not present at either OSGEO or OSC. Thus, I´m hoping that GSDI might be able to increase its role as a place where FOSS can be promoted and presented to an international audience. GSDI´s president, Harlan Onsrud, is extremely serious, open-minded and supportive of FOSS. I will be at GSDI 2008 at Trindad and promise to give you a report from the trenches. (Frank) ...Perhaps due to the relentless propaganda of the "anti government right" in North America, I have some concerns about governments throwing large amounts of money into FOSS development without clear thinking about how to make that money work efficiently. It is easy to imagine boondoggles that could suck up lots of money with little in the way of useful products. Relax... Lord Keynes, Roosevelt´s New Deal, the Marshall Plan, NASA´s Apollo Program and other examples show that efficiency is not a prerequisite for successful use of public money. Efficient use of public money is not about achieving feasible products in the most cost-effective way. It is about achieving goals that would be impossible for the private sector. Putting a man on the moon, developing health care solutions for the poor, and saving the planet from disastrous climate change are tasks for governments. They cannot be measured by how much money you put into them, but by their results. Message from Markus Lupp > Responses by Gilberto > (Markus) I would like to give some comments on this from the perspective of a GIS company with an Open Source business model. > (...) Now to the question of government intervention. > After reading Gilberto's mail I asked myself what is meant by this term? > (...) In Germany (...)there is a growing support from people in governmental agencies who decided by themselves that they want to use more open source software > (Gilberto - is this what you mean by indirect support?). Government intervention can be direct or indirect. In the first case, public funds directly support FOSS4G projects (as in the case of gvSIG). In the second, there is a consensus that it is in the public interest to consider FOSS as a serious alternative to proprietary software and thus public managers are not afraid of FUD tactics (as it happens in Europe currently). Europe is taking FOSS very seriously. For those who haven´t seen it yet, take a look at the EC´s Open Source Observatory (http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/chapter/452). This is a very good example of indirect support for FOSS. > (Markus) So from my point of view it is possible to compete in the GIS market using an open source business model without any high-level government intervention (although it surely helps) I respectfully disagree. I doubt you could achieve the same success in the USA, where there is no active public policy in support of FOSS. I stand by my earlier assessment that successful long-term FOSS needs government support (direct or indirect). Best Gilberto -- === Dr.Gilberto Camara Director General National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil voice: +55-12-3945-6035 fax: +55-12-3921-6455 web: http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto blog: http://techne-episteme.blogspot.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models
Hi Gilberto, Gilberto Camara schrieb: > (Markus) So from my point of view it is possible to compete in the GIS market using an open source business model without any high-level government intervention (although it surely helps) I respectfully disagree. I doubt you could achieve the same success in the USA, where there is no active public policy in support of FOSS. I stand by my earlier assessment that successful long-term FOSS needs government support (direct or indirect). Well, this is interesting and I now understand your point of view better. I was really not aware that the indirect support that I can see and feel in Europe already is so much stronger than it is in the US. BTW, in South-East Asia (where I currently live and work) many countries have an official initiative that calls for support and usage of Open Source software, e.g. http://www.igos.web.id/ in Indonesia and http://opensource.mampu.gov.my/ in Malaysia. Best regards, Markus -- Dr. Markus Lupp l a t / l o n GmbH Kupang-NTT Indonesia phone +62 (0)81 339 431666 http://www.lat-lon.de http://www.deegree.org -- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] About OSGeo...
In putting together some words for the Aust-NZ chapters bid to host the 2009 FOSS4G conf, I went looking at what OSGeo stands for and how we could answer that mission in our conf hosting bid. I looked at http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html and got the distinct impression it was quite dated. I don't think it's reasonable to consider OSGeo a nascent organisation anymore. The foundations governance model has been set. We have already expanded to include multiple projects, with even more great projects to come. While the foundation provides organisational support to the wider open source geospatial community, I don't think it's fair to say it provides legal and financial support. Certainly it provides financial support (in terms of structures and processes for financial dealings) to OSGeo projects, but even there the legal support is a very grey area that I don't think anybody is too keen to test. Perhaps we should cast the net a little less far reaching (though perhaps suitably ambiguous?) when making a statement about OSGeo's financial and legal intentions. Any thoughts on what we should be saying? I also noticed (ok, so at this point I was going on the hunt for what else we might want to revisit) that we have no "media centre" links from the front page. Do we have a place where we put all our press releases? We do have them don't we? Surely we have something valuable we want to tell the world? Address current issues? From time to time issues fly around the geoblogsphere, and lots of people here express strongly held views when outrageous things are done and said, but shouldn't the response sometimes come from OSGeo as well? We should probably also have an rss feed on the media content. Well, looks like I've just identified a job that needs doing, and it would be a little petulant of me to complain and expect others to do all the heavy lifting. I'm happy to help out with such an effort, but I can't do it alone. Any help would be appreciated. The faq http://www.osgeo.org/content/faq/foundation_faq.html) also needs updating. I suspect some of the issues may no longer need quite so much attention, while there should be plenty of new material to add. I'll troll through the list archives over the next few weeks and see if I can pick out any with some proposed answers. Feel free to ping me on this one if I take a little too long... Regards, Tim Bowden ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4GIS business models
Hi Bruce, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: wrt the Brazillian TerraLib toolkit mentioned in your paper: - I've had a quick look at the web site. The product appears to be quite mature and functional. - Has anyone from this list had a technical look at the products and like to share their observations? Can they be integrated with OSGeo apps? Do they support OGC standards etc? Bruce Bannerman I believe that TerraLib would deserve a better "technical look" than what I did but my initial impression was very favorable. What impress me the most was the raster-on-rdbms support. I download and installed the TerraView application and imported some raster data files to PostgreSQL and it works like a charm, but again, that would deserve a performance evaluation. The source code repository is not as open as GDAL (for example) but I believe that out-side contributors should be able to suggest modification by sending CVS patches at least. There are very good (normally expensive) image processing algorithms implemented on the library, e.g. segmentation, Wavelets. There is a rich set of vectors algorithms too. Talking about integration with other OSGeo projects I believe that the current TerraLib RC uses GDAL. Best regards, Ivan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
