EOGEO and Free Software

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 09:22:42AM -0500, Allan Doyle wrote:
> On Thursday, January 08 2004 at 15:07:43(+0100) Bernhard Reiter wrote:
>  > On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 09:01:50AM -0500, Allan Doyle wrote:

> You're welcome. This is just the kind of thing we had in mind when we
> started. Our feeling is that if we can help FreeGIS with an initial,
> small gesture, then later we can ask for more resources from others to
> help more.

That seems to be a good strategy.

> We have not hammered out the "official" line yet, but this is our
> leaning. We understand that the developing world we want to help is
> not served with proprietary software.  

Very true.

> What we need to do is work on
> some wording that is not inflammatory since we want to maintain good
> relations with commercial companies, too. 

You probably mean "proprietary software companies".
All companies are "commercial" by nature.
(At least this is how I understand the word.)
Many commercial companies delopy or even develop Free Software.

It is a common missconception:
	http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Commercial

> We have already had one
> instance of someone wanting to donate their proprietary software and
> the following discussions did not go too well once they realized we
> were reluctant to deploy their package.

Some "donations" of proprietary software are like
the first gratis drug portion. They know how to make you addicted.
Learning one software and having the data in one format
are high barriers. Companies can cash in on this.

So this certainly is a area where you cannot completely avoid 
the confrontation anyway. 


BTW: Did you read http://www.gnupress.org/book13.html
Philosophy of Software Freedom Series
Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman
ISBN 1-882114-98-1
I can recommend this book, most text are on the fsf.org website,
but reading them on paper is much faster and nicer.
	Bernhard
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