-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 100% support to what Daniel and Brian say.
One mission of OSGeo is to support standards development, another to interact with all geospatial communities. Even although they have a different take on licensing proprietary vendors are a valuable part of the geospatial community. To alienate users who are stuck on proprietary software for whichever reason would not help any of us. Best regards, Arnulf. Daniel Morissette wrote: > Hi Miguel, > > The answer depends on how you measure success. If your measure of > success is the number of people who drop their proprietary apps in favor > of open source packages then you may not want to build this kind of > bridge since your best tactic may be to play the same vendor lock-in > game as some proprietary vendors do (note I wrote some vendors and not > all). > > OTOH, if you measure success by the number of happy users/customers of > your software (as I do), then by all means, build as many bridges as > possible. In this case it does not matter if your users continue to use > their proprietary software in parallel with your open source package, > what matters is that at the end of the day they could be more efficient > in doing their work, and in the end become happier campers. > > A good example of this is the GDAL/OGR project which is a success (IMHO) > in large part because the license and philosophy of the project > encouraged proprietary vendors to use and contribute to it. As a result, > it is in use everywhere today, and even ESRI considers it part of "the > best open source technology" that "it is committed to supporting" > (http://esri.com/opensource). See http://gdal.org/credits.html for a > list of organizations who have adopted and supported the project over > the years. > > My 0.02$ > > Daniel > > > > Miguel Montesinos wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I throw out a question some people are debating in Spain [1 (only >> Spanish)]. Sextante has the intention (or at least have thought about >> it) of building bindings so that it can be used from proprietary >> applications, like ArcGIS. >> >> 1) Do you think that it may avoid proprietary users to migrate to open >> solutions, as they can benefit of open-source libraries under their >> proprietary software? Besides, this give arguments to proprietary >> manufacturers because of the weakness of open-source software needing to >> run on top of proprietary ones, or to sell out their compatibility with >> FOSS4G. >> >> 2) Do you think that it may lead proprietary users to try out and >> migrate to open source solutions due to the good impression they can >> have after using FOSS4G? Besides, this could generate incomes to improve >> FOSS4G developments, and offer alternatives to proprietary extensions, >> drivers, ... >> >> What is your oppinion about this tricky question? >> >> Best, >> >> [1] http://sextantegis.blogspot.com/ >> --------------------------------------------- >> Miguel Montesinos >> CTO >> PRODEVELOP, S.L. >> mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es >> www.prodevelop.es >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > - -- Arnulf Christl Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkug3IQACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b2esQCfWjsLDsnn54UOTE0x7TvVLhdy yRIAnAmjcpm6zxGz1GdnJriMXXzwYl7z =WnGO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss