On 09/02/2007, at 2:27 PM, Mike Liebhold wrote:
I merely posted this on behalf of the conference organizer Tim
Forseman who is really a great guy who actually talks like that.
He's just enthusiastic.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the response. I understood that you were just passing the
message on, and I had no conclusions about the people involved. I was
just responding to the wording, as it implied more than what is
involved... I guess it is marketing! I have the same interest in
applying GIS for the betterment of life and the environment, and am
generally a bit suspicious of the big players sponsoring events that
are related to what they'd like to have.
Eg, while I appreciate satellite imagery being available, I'm
concerned that Google are signing exclusive contracts which prevent
other people purchasing the same data. This is a competitive move,
and I can't see how this strategy is going to end up being of global
benefit as other players (who may have more to contribute) get locked
out of the market. Microsoft are in the game too, and they're
definitely smelling money.
I think my primary fear is that basic aspects will be patented, so
that every effort to improve things will be blocked unless some large
company gets their cut. Look at how iPIX completely and utterly
bollocksed hundreds of amateurs making panoramas with fisheye lenses,
even though their patents have no merit and there's plenty of prior
precedence. The little people don't have the money to go to court to
have the patents invalidated.
This is obviously a paranoid perspective (though with reason), and
the trick is to find a healthy balance between safety and excessive
safety. Techniques need to be made public and freely available, going
from conception to useful results. When I can't buy an aerial map of
my own area to put online because Google have an exclusive on it,
that really stuffs a cork in my works and what I was going to do gets
put on the shelf.
So when I see an advert where I'd be able to demonstrate what I was
going to do, but I can't do because of the sponsors, who would get to
see what I was going to do, and might bung in some patents on it, I
get a little bit pissed off. This probably wasn't going to happen
anyway, so I acknowledge my response is disproportional to the
initial input. :)
I hope we'll see you in San Francisco this spring, first for
Where07, maybe a geowankers get together or two , and then the
Digital Earth symposium. It should be a fun two weeks.
Sounds like fun, but I'm not much of a traveller. Enjoy yourselves
and hope everything goes well. :)
Steve.
--
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