The developing world including India battles a scourge 'P I R A C Y'.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/it-services/Nehru-Place-A-beehive-for-software-piracy/articleshow/11349126.cms
Unless this affliction to society is cured, Open Source Software will have
very slow growth.
While I teach Open GIS, I am flooded with questions like, 'Where is the
employment prospect'. (Their answer) 'Learn the popular GIS and the
Students will find a sure job'..
With Govt of India pitching for Open Source, is to be added with a vigorous
'Anti-Piracy Policy'.. Call it 'Zero Tolerance'. While at FOSS4G India 2015
Dehradun, a speaker from Gujarat narrated a story of how schools were
supplied with computers with no other Operating System but an Ubuntu DVD.
Schools, are in a state that they are not even aware of 'The Existance of
OS, and it's need'. They just shifted to the popular OS, and it is an easy
guess HOW.
So when it comes to countries like India (and other developing countries),
education of Open-GIS, has to include merits of FOSS, and FOSSGIS.
The most popular proprietary GIS in India, is available every where, with
what is known as a 'CRACK', to open. There are hardly any legal cases that
can be searched on the WEB.
Ravi
On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 3:39 AM, Suchith Anand
suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk wrote:
Colleagues,
It was just by coincidence while i was working on getting data for a
research paper on How to quantify the economic impact of Open Source
Geospatial software that i came across Randal Hale's email's on the
difficulties faced by one high school in the USA for Proprietary software
updates [1]. It was a clear wake up call on the consequences of Proprietary
GIS agenda for schools and education. It was then i decided to send an Open
request to AAG [2]and humbly request AAG to specifically include Open
Education principles firmly in the new Advanced Placement course in
Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST).
But on 22nd June 2015 when i read Dave Murray's (GIS Coordinator, City of
Westminster, USA ) reply email on this ,i realised that this is a much
wider problem and we need to make all colleagues globally aware of the
dangers of falling into some Proprietary vendor's very clever marketing
trap. Dave has kindly given me permission to share his email with the
wider geo community so the wider community is aware of these kind of
marketing gimmicks and vendor lock-in tactics. It will help others realise
the costs of being silent as it is affecting not just government
departments such as City of Westminister in USA and hundreds of other
organisations worldwide but our future generations education
opportunities. I am determined to do my best to make sure education is not
at the dictates of any vendor.
Dave and City of Westminster, USA are just one of thousands who fall in
the marketing gimmicks of various proprietary vendor's trap. Unfortunately
many are very scared even to discuss this in public.
In fact, the questions i asked AAG is also valid for all other educational
initiatives worldwide to avoid them falling into these kind of marketing
strategies of some Proprietary GIS vendors. I request all governments,
universities in their education policy worldwide to look into the
following important criteria :
* What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep
providing free services/software for the long term?
* If the Proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other
conditions in say 5 or 10 years time what will happen to these hundreds of
thousands of students? Can anyone give us any guarantee.?
* If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 or
10 years time? Will it be the schools who have to pay or the government
will give them funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS
vendor?
* If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program ?
* What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms
later?
I really hope these thousands of schools and teachers (affecting hundreds
of thousands of students) will not fall into this proprietary vendor's
marketing trap and be at the mercy of vendor dictates later (in just 3-5
year's time) . Randal Hale's email has been eye opener for all and i
decided to do my best so these schools do not have to suffer when they
change their conditions later and the schools are unable or forced to pay
these ridiculous costs later (as Dave's organisation City of Westminister
have realised later).
It is a wider education problem that as educators we need to be aware of.
It will really be a missed opportunity for a generation and we should not
allow that (esp as we now know the background marketing gimmicks and vendor
lock-in tactics and experiences from those affected previously). The
schools should be investing precious resources on other important things
(getting more teachers, investing in