[Freegis-list] List of Companies Supporting FreeGIS (was: Street Mapping)

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 09:02:41AM -0700, Adrian Custer wrote:
> This seems like it could become part of the mission of the FreeGIS
> project. A list of companies that provide support to one or another
> project and a plug for products/services they offer. It would be great
> to point some of the commercial spending in useful directions.

it is a quite delecate task and we discussed it a couple of times.
As you might know, there is a (rather small) list of companies that
we advertise on the FreeGIS CD documentation, see the bottom links at:
	http://freegis.org/FreeGIS-CD-doc-online/1.2.1/freegis_cd.de.html

The reason why there are only two entries is, that we had to give
a definition on a 'Free Software Company'.
The problem is that there is a broad range of companies that partly
just issue Free Software products, but actually try to sell licenses
of add-on etc. Of course, on the other hand, there are companies
that are quite dedicated to Free Software, but still have a proprietary
branch. Where to draw the line?

We apply the definition as they are discussed for the GNU business
network:
	http://mailman.gnubiz.org/pipermail/gnubiz-disc/2000-December/000014.html	

The GNU Business Network is an activity that currently is not much in
progress, because the people behind did the grand job to set up 
the FSF Europe first.

It would mean a great efford to set up a further definition that
would include important companies like DMSolutions, but exclude
those that do not support Free Software with their very interests.

So my signal is just: please set up more companies that suffice the
definition of the GNU Business Network (GBN). I hope that the
GBN will soon be more active and lfinally launch as it would
not only help the FreeGIS community.

Best

	Jan

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/

Intevation GmbH	              	     http://intevation.de/
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