Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
On Sun, January 20, 2008 11:33, Cameron Shorter wrote: > Arnulf, > Excellent soap box speech. I'd love you to put it on a web page > somewhere so that I can reference it next time this topic comes up. A wiki > might be good so that we can collectively tweak it (as you suggest). Hello, it took me some time to figure out how to turn this soapbox speech into an article and then to find a title. The EduCom charter text helped me with the wording, it is available here now: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Appropriately_Licensed_Material Feel free to hack it. Best regards, Arnulf. > Arnulf Christl wrote: > >> Howard Butler wrote: >> >>> >>> On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: >>> If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. >>> >>> Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the >>> public domain and give them away for free for "extra credibility"? What >>> would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an >>> intensive training session? >> >> Entrepreneurs, we have thoroughly analyzed this aspect over the past >> years and come to the conclusion that publishing course material openly >> is not detrimental to earning money. Quite the contrary it even helps us >> making more business. The added value is generated at several levels >> including both hard cash and marketing (find out details below). As >> active FOSSGIS software contributors we are happy to foster and promote >> the projects that we are involved with. In some cases (for example >> MapServer and PostGIS) this is the only way that we can give >> back our 2Ct contribution. To better understand the involved factors we >> have studied uses cases in detail. First we have grouped our clients >> into three distinct categories who *use* our course material, these are: >> * Experts >> * Students >> * Professionals >> >> >> Then we have identified three distinct groups who *profit* from having >> course material released under an open and free license. These are: * >> Clients (~users, as categorized above) * Creators (for example the >> WhereGroup or Chandler OTG who produce "Intellectual Property") * the >> FOSSGIS project and communities that are in the focus of the training >> material (here MapServer and PostGIS). >> >> A multidimensional matrix would probably make this transparent but >> unfortunately I am too dumb to create it and will need to use words to >> explain the dependencies. 1. Real Experts (hackers, nerds, freaks). They >> would never pay for our courses because they are too damn smart. They >> wont offer courses themselves (which would be detrimental to our >> business) because it would bore them to death. But they still profit >> from having access to material because it will speed up understanding >> the corresponding FOSSGIS project. This will make them choose this >> project one over another one because good developers are also lazy. This >> is good for the FOSSGIS project and community because those people >> listen to what those real experts have to say, recommend, etc. Hard to >> measure - but unquestionably there. 2. Students. They will not be able to >> pay our rates anyway, so we do not loose anything if we give them the >> material for free. Quite the contrary, when those students leave school >> and come into a position where they have to decide where to go - who >> you'r gonna ask - Ghostbusters. This is a long term strategy that only >> market leaders can follow. Corporations Besides that students can >> potentially also enhance the course material, keep it up to date, etc. >> But only if it >> is available under a FOSS license, etc. This currently does not happen >> because universities and educational personnel are still in the late >> sixties wrt their knowledge about Open Source but so what. We have to be >> patient. Eventually the old farts who don't get it will be replaced by >> those that we have helped educate with our freely available course >> material and Bingo! If you lock your training material away and treat it >> as "Intellectual Property" you will be the only idiot who invests >> keeping it up to date. Why not exploit those who are prepared to give >> (FOSS4G 08, Keynote by Damian Conway)? >> >> >> 3. Professionals: Those are the ones that pay us money. They have a >> problem on their hand, a budget to solve it and limited time. These are >> the ones we love, we live off them. They would never bother to try and >> learn by themselves with freely available material because they have the >> resources to do it professionally and get somebody to explain it to >> them. They don't have the time to learn it by themselves. If they don't >> have the budget, they are not interesting to us anyway. All folks from >> these three groups will see who created the course material and will >> memorize them as the experts on the topic. The
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Having read through this thread, I think Dave's suggestion is spot on. This Service Providers Directory (SPD) is an excellent resource, but what it is missing is the ability to send updates or news... It seems pretty clear that there are people here who are [at least mildly] offended by seeing advertisements on this list. I would bet, however, that there are also many people on this list who are [at least mildly] interested in receiving this sort of update. The idea to create a new list specifically for this sort of posting cleanly solves this problem. It delivers pertinent information to those who are interested and bothers not the rest. --e On 1/18/08, Dave Patton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Arnulf Christl wrote: > > [snip a bunch of really good stuff - thanks Arnulf] > > > Does this mean that all businesses providing this kind of service should > > now spam this list with their latest announcements? > > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo > OSGeo-Announce: > OSGeo Announcements and News > > OSGeo-Discuss: > OSGeo Discussions > > Therefore, how about adding something like > OSGeo-SPD-News: > Announcements, News, and Press Releases from > members of the OSGeo Service Provider Directory > > Having such a list would then preclude sending > those types of materials on OSGeo-Discuss. > > -- > Dave Patton > > System Developer > National Forest Inventory > Pacific Forestry Centre > Natural Resources Canada > > Degree Confluence Project: > Canadian Coordinator > Technical Coordinator > http://www.confluence.org/ > > OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference: > Workshop Committee Chair > Conference Committee member > http://www.foss4g2007.org/ > > Personal website: > Maps, GPS, etc. > http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ > ___ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Arnulf, Excellent soap box speech. I'd love you to put it on a web page somewhere so that I can reference it next time this topic comes up. A wiki might be good so that we can collectively tweak it (as you suggest). Arnulf Christl wrote: Howard Butler wrote: On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the public domain and give them away for free for "extra credibility"? What would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an intensive training session? Entrepreneurs, we have thoroughly analyzed this aspect over the past years and come to the conclusion that publishing course material openly is not detrimental to earning money. Quite the contrary it even helps us making more business. The added value is generated at several levels including both hard cash and marketing (find out details below). As active FOSSGIS software contributors we are happy to foster and promote the projects that we are involved with. In some cases (for example MapServer and PostGIS) this is the only way that we can give back our 2Ct contribution. To better understand the involved factors we have studied uses cases in detail. First we have grouped our clients into three distinct categories who *use* our course material, these are: * Experts * Students * Professionals Then we have identified three distinct groups who *profit* from having course material released under an open and free license. These are: * Clients (~users, as categorized above) * Creators (for example the WhereGroup or Chandler OTG who produce "Intellectual Property") * the FOSSGIS project and communities that are in the focus of the training material (here MapServer and PostGIS). A multidimensional matrix would probably make this transparent but unfortunately I am too dumb to create it and will need to use words to explain the dependencies. 1. Real Experts (hackers, nerds, freaks). They would never pay for our courses because they are too damn smart. They wont offer courses themselves (which would be detrimental to our business) because it would bore them to death. But they still profit from having access to material because it will speed up understanding the corresponding FOSSGIS project. This will make them choose this project one over another one because good developers are also lazy. This is good for the FOSSGIS project and community because those people listen to what those real experts have to say, recommend, etc. Hard to measure - but unquestionably there. 2. Students. They will not be able to pay our rates anyway, so we do not loose anything if we give them the material for free. Quite the contrary, when those students leave school and come into a position where they have to decide where to go - who you'r gonna ask - Ghostbusters. This is a long term strategy that only market leaders can follow. Corporations Besides that students can potentially also enhance the course material, keep it up to date, etc. But only if it is available under a FOSS license, etc. This currently does not happen because universities and educational personnel are still in the late sixties wrt their knowledge about Open Source but so what. We have to be patient. Eventually the old farts who don't get it will be replaced by those that we have helped educate with our freely available course material and Bingo! If you lock your training material away and treat it as "Intellectual Property" you will be the only idiot who invests keeping it up to date. Why not exploit those who are prepared to give (FOSS4G 08, Keynote by Damian Conway)? 3. Professionals: Those are the ones that pay us money. They have a problem on their hand, a budget to solve it and limited time. These are the ones we love, we live off them. They would never bother to try and learn by themselves with freely available material because they have the resources to do it professionally and get somebody to explain it to them. They don't have the time to learn it by themselves. If they don't have the budget, they are not interesting to us anyway. All folks from these three groups will see who created the course material and will memorize them as the experts on the topic. The GNU FDL license has a clause where invariant sections can be defined, typically this could be the front page and back cover, there you can find the authors, company logo and web site links or the creators' individual address, contacts. Link to the repository where the document is maintained, mailing list or whatever you want to advertise as important for this publication. Therefore our competitors who offer the same training courses with our material (Outrageous! My "Property") always advertise us as the real real experts. Who're
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Allan Doyle wrote: +1 on no "advertising" or "announcements" on this list. I agree that it may sound churlish to stop good organizations from sending good information to good people; I also agree that allowing it would diminish the usefulness of this list. If the web page of offerings is not enough, then maybe set up a separate list for that kind of thing. +1 on Arnulf's analysis of freely provided course materials. MIT started the Open Course Ware (OCW) movement a few years ago[1] and it certainly has not cut back on MIT's ability to attract "customers", i.e. students. In fact, it has spawned a mini-industry of other universities putting their materials online[2]. Folks, I'd note I advised OTG to drop a message about their offering to the discuss list, so they were acting in what they believed to be good faith. I still think it is appropriate for folks to briefly introduce new open source related training offerings here, but I shall avoid suggesting this in the future since there are clearly different opinions. The SPD does not give much granularity for describing things like training courses. Perhaps at some point we can have a wiki page pointing off to various training options available for OSGeo related technologies. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Arnulf Christl wrote: [snip a bunch of really good stuff - thanks Arnulf] Does this mean that all businesses providing this kind of service should now spam this list with their latest announcements? http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo OSGeo-Announce: OSGeo Announcements and News OSGeo-Discuss: OSGeo Discussions Therefore, how about adding something like OSGeo-SPD-News: Announcements, News, and Press Releases from members of the OSGeo Service Provider Directory Having such a list would then preclude sending those types of materials on OSGeo-Discuss. -- Dave Patton System Developer National Forest Inventory Pacific Forestry Centre Natural Resources Canada Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference: Workshop Committee Chair Conference Committee member http://www.foss4g2007.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
+1 on no "advertising" or "announcements" on this list. I agree that it may sound churlish to stop good organizations from sending good information to good people; I also agree that allowing it would diminish the usefulness of this list. If the web page of offerings is not enough, then maybe set up a separate list for that kind of thing. +1 on Arnulf's analysis of freely provided course materials. MIT started the Open Course Ware (OCW) movement a few years ago[1] and it certainly has not cut back on MIT's ability to attract "customers", i.e. students. In fact, it has spawned a mini-industry of other universities putting their materials online[2]. Allan [1] http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm [2] http://www.ocwconsortium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=26 On Jan 18, 2008, at 7:58 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote: Howard Butler wrote: On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the public domain and give them away for free for "extra credibility"? What would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an intensive training session? Entrepreneurs, we have thoroughly analyzed this aspect over the past years and come to the conclusion that publishing course material openly is not detrimental to earning money. Quite the contrary it even helps us making more business. The added value is generated at several levels including both hard cash and marketing (find out details below). As active FOSSGIS software contributors we are happy to foster and promote the projects that we are involved with. In some cases (for example MapServer and PostGIS) this is the only way that we can give back our 2Ct contribution. To better understand the involved factors we have studied uses cases in detail. First we have grouped our clients into three distinct categories who *use* our course material, these are: * Experts * Students * Professionals Then we have identified three distinct groups who *profit* from having course material released under an open and free license. These are: * Clients (~users, as categorized above) * Creators (for example the WhereGroup or Chandler OTG who produce "Intellectual Property") * the FOSSGIS project and communities that are in the focus of the training material (here MapServer and PostGIS). A multidimensional matrix would probably make this transparent but unfortunately I am too dumb to create it and will need to use words to explain the dependencies. 1. Real Experts (hackers, nerds, freaks). They would never pay for our courses because they are too damn smart. They wont offer courses themselves (which would be detrimental to our business) because it would bore them to death. But they still profit from having access to material because it will speed up understanding the corresponding FOSSGIS project. This will make them choose this project one over another one because good developers are also lazy. This is good for the FOSSGIS project and community because those people listen to what those real experts have to say, recommend, etc. Hard to measure - but unquestionably there. 2. Students. They will not be able to pay our rates anyway, so we do not loose anything if we give them the material for free. Quite the contrary, when those students leave school and come into a position where they have to decide where to go - who you'r gonna ask - Ghostbusters. This is a long term strategy that only market leaders can follow. Corporations Besides that students can potentially also enhance the course material, keep it up to date, etc. But only if it is available under a FOSS license, etc. This currently does not happen because universities and educational personnel are still in the late sixties wrt their knowledge about Open Source but so what. We have to be patient. Eventually the old farts who don't get it will be replaced by those that we have helped educate with our freely available course material and Bingo! If you lock your training material away and treat it as "Intellectual Property" you will be the only idiot who invests keeping it up to date. Why not exploit those who are prepared to give (FOSS4G 08, Keynote by Damian Conway)? 3. Professionals: Those are the ones that pay us money. They have a problem on their hand, a budget to solve it and limited time. These are the ones we love, we live off them. They would never bother to try and learn by themselves with freely available material because they have the resources to do it professionally and get somebody to explain it to them. They don't have the time to learn it by themselves. If they don't have the budget, they are not interest
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Howard Butler wrote: On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the public domain and give them away for free for "extra credibility"? What would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an intensive training session? Entrepreneurs, we have thoroughly analyzed this aspect over the past years and come to the conclusion that publishing course material openly is not detrimental to earning money. Quite the contrary it even helps us making more business. The added value is generated at several levels including both hard cash and marketing (find out details below). As active FOSSGIS software contributors we are happy to foster and promote the projects that we are involved with. In some cases (for example MapServer and PostGIS) this is the only way that we can give back our 2Ct contribution. To better understand the involved factors we have studied uses cases in detail. First we have grouped our clients into three distinct categories who *use* our course material, these are: * Experts * Students * Professionals Then we have identified three distinct groups who *profit* from having course material released under an open and free license. These are: * Clients (~users, as categorized above) * Creators (for example the WhereGroup or Chandler OTG who produce "Intellectual Property") * the FOSSGIS project and communities that are in the focus of the training material (here MapServer and PostGIS). A multidimensional matrix would probably make this transparent but unfortunately I am too dumb to create it and will need to use words to explain the dependencies. 1. Real Experts (hackers, nerds, freaks). They would never pay for our courses because they are too damn smart. They wont offer courses themselves (which would be detrimental to our business) because it would bore them to death. But they still profit from having access to material because it will speed up understanding the corresponding FOSSGIS project. This will make them choose this project one over another one because good developers are also lazy. This is good for the FOSSGIS project and community because those people listen to what those real experts have to say, recommend, etc. Hard to measure - but unquestionably there. 2. Students. They will not be able to pay our rates anyway, so we do not loose anything if we give them the material for free. Quite the contrary, when those students leave school and come into a position where they have to decide where to go - who you'r gonna ask - Ghostbusters. This is a long term strategy that only market leaders can follow. Corporations Besides that students can potentially also enhance the course material, keep it up to date, etc. But only if it is available under a FOSS license, etc. This currently does not happen because universities and educational personnel are still in the late sixties wrt their knowledge about Open Source but so what. We have to be patient. Eventually the old farts who don't get it will be replaced by those that we have helped educate with our freely available course material and Bingo! If you lock your training material away and treat it as "Intellectual Property" you will be the only idiot who invests keeping it up to date. Why not exploit those who are prepared to give (FOSS4G 08, Keynote by Damian Conway)? 3. Professionals: Those are the ones that pay us money. They have a problem on their hand, a budget to solve it and limited time. These are the ones we love, we live off them. They would never bother to try and learn by themselves with freely available material because they have the resources to do it professionally and get somebody to explain it to them. They don't have the time to learn it by themselves. If they don't have the budget, they are not interesting to us anyway. All folks from these three groups will see who created the course material and will memorize them as the experts on the topic. The GNU FDL license has a clause where invariant sections can be defined, typically this could be the front page and back cover, there you can find the authors, company logo and web site links or the creators' individual address, contacts. Link to the repository where the document is maintained, mailing list or whatever you want to advertise as important for this publication. Therefore our competitors who offer the same training courses with our material (Outrageous! My "Property") always advertise us as the real real experts. Who're you gonna ask if you really wanna know? Lastly - and so important that I cannot stress this enough - obviously the Software Project is going to profit. Because the largest open gash in FOSS' outward image is missing, rotten and wrong documentation and training materials. If
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote: On 17-Jan-08, at 11:51 AM, Howard Butler wrote: I applaud OTG for developing a curriculum and providing training services to serve this market, and I think the osgeo-discuss is a perfect place for an announcement like this. I encouraged them to post here so others could know about this opportunity. :) I'd love to know if there are more companies or organisations out there presenting similar options. Please also note that the Education Committee is always interested in finding more open resources to add to this list: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Educational_Content_Inventory Tyler Hello dearest, I was thoroughly misunderstood in both points. Excuse me for not being explicit enough, I will try again. 1. It is my opinion that OSGeo Discuss should be free of any and all advertisement and I am surprised that Tyler even encouraged this, my apologies to Chander. OSGeo operates a service provider directory that is meant to help people find what they need, OTG is already registered there. If OSGeo allows people to use this mailing list to advertise their services we are going to end in hell sooner or later. There are hundreds of FOSSGIS businesses out there who would readily advertise whatever they are doing. How are you going to differentiate who may and who may not? To organize this we have the SPD. It still needs a lot of work (in my opinion) but it is a good start, yet another kudos to Frank Warmerdam for having started it. If I got this wrong and announcements of this kind are even wanted then the WhereGroup (and soon probably at least 10 more Germany based companies) will happily spam this list with announcements of curriculum and services. I just ask where to draw the line? 2. "Intellectual Property" is one of the most frequently used terms to fight, discredit and damage Open Source and business with and around Open Source. It also feeds one of the deepest misconceptions about Open Source - namely that Open Source (and all that uses and furthers it) is gratis because it does not exploit the legal concept of "Intellectual Property". Therefore I cannot refrain from commenting on people using it in contexts where I think they are damaging "our" Memes. Regards, Arnulf. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Howard Butler wrote: On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the public domain and give them away for free for "extra credibility"? What would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an intensive training session? IMO, what OTG is doing is a very classical business model of Open Source development. Publishers like O'Reilly, Apress, Springer or our own FOSS4G event workshops (did you know FOSS4G cleared 100k this year? ;) ) follow this exact model. In answer: OTG doesn't need to put training material into Public Domain, same as software companies don't need to put software into Open Source. However, I'd hope that companies would see a good business case for open data and open documentation for the same reasons we write Open Source Software. And OSS users would be receptive to Open Documentation business models. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
On 17-Jan-08, at 11:51 AM, Howard Butler wrote: I applaud OTG for developing a curriculum and providing training services to serve this market, and I think the osgeo-discuss is a perfect place for an announcement like this. I encouraged them to post here so others could know about this opportunity. :) I'd love to know if there are more companies or organisations out there presenting similar options. Please also note that the Education Committee is always interested in finding more open resources to add to this list: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Educational_Content_Inventory Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the public domain and give them away for free for "extra credibility"? What would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an intensive training session? IMO, what OTG is doing is a very classical business model of Open Source development. Publishers like O'Reilly, Apress, Springer or our own FOSS4G event workshops (did you know FOSS4G cleared 100k this year? ;) ) follow this exact model. The fact that OTG sees an opportunity to do this and has put forth effort in developing materials is a signal there's a market there and it is an indirect measurement of those projects' success -- not a failure of the projects' documentation efforts. Not everyone has the time to go learn all of this stuff on their own or the ability to travel to FOSS4G and hope one of the workshops covers what they need. I applaud OTG for developing a curriculum and providing training services to serve this market, and I think the osgeo-discuss is a perfect place for an announcement like this. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote: I don't think that this list wants to read "in-house developed intellectual property" advertisements. If every Open Source GIS market leader would to this we would be in trouble. It is good that you can already be found through the Service Provider Directory. If you want to raise more attention you should consider to sponsor OSGeo. Chander, I'd be happy to read this sort of advertisement if the training material were open. As a community we should be collaboratively building such material. If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training
I don't think that this list wants to read "in-house developed intellectual property" advertisements. If every Open Source GIS market leader would to this we would be in trouble. It is good that you can already be found through the Service Provider Directory. If you want to raise more attention you should consider to sponsor OSGeo. Best regards, Arnulf Christl. Chander Ganesan wrote: MORRISVILLE, NC - January 8, 2008 - Open Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS & UMN MapServer Training The Open Technology Group (OTG), the leader in the development and delivery of training solutions centered about Open Source technologies, announced today the addition of its "Introduction to GIS with PostGIS & MapServer" course to its wide range of PostgreSQL related course offerings. "Implementing GIS solutions can be a daunting task" said Chander Ganesan, President "Our Introduction to GIS with PostGIS & MapServer course covers the concepts, administration tools, and techniques necessary to quickly and efficiently implement these solutions using PostGIS, PostgreSQL, and UMN MapServer to visualize results. Furthermore, it allows our customers a wider range of customization options for our on-site course offerings." "OTG continues to deliver the most comprehensive set of public-enrollment PostgreSQL courses in the world" said Ganesan, "and our customers are able to mix and match components of our courses to meet their specific goals for affordable on-site delivery to groups of 4 or more students." The "Introduction to GIS with PostGIS & MapServer" course covers the following topics: - GIS Fundamentals/Concepts - Installing PostGIS - PostGIS Data Loads (Shape File Imports) - PostGIS Features - Creating PostGIS Tables & Loading Data - Simple PostGIS Queries (Simple Features for SQL) - Visualizing PostGIS Results - Deploying UMN MapServer - Implementing Interactive Maps ABOUT OPEN TECHNOLOGY GROUP, INC. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Morrisville, NC, the Open Technology Group, Inc. (OTG) has established itself as the leading provider of training solutions centered about Open Source software and solutions. With its comprehensive library of in-house developed intellectual property, OTG is able to deliver comprehensive, customized, and structured training covering a wide range of software solutions. The Open Technology Group offers affordable customized on-site technology training throughout the world, as well as public-enrollment courses at its headquarters in Morrisville, NC as well as at a wide range of partner locations worldwide. For more information, a schedule of upcoming courses, and a complete course catalog, visit us online at http://www.otg-nc.com, or contact us at 877-258-8987 . ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss