[Freegis-list] gis meeting

[Daniel Calvelo Aros]

From: Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
Sent: Tue, 31 May 2005 08:29:01 +0200
>
> At 10:28, lunedì 30 maggio 2005, Francois Badet has probably written:
> > Hi Paolo,
> >
> > It looks like a very interesting experience to have on the one hand the
> > major GIS players and to demonstrate on the other hand the technical
> > capabilities of available Open Source solutions.
> >
> > In your opinion what do the major GIS players mean when they say that
> > the presence (and expected increase) of Open Source is positive ? Do
> > they see some opportunities for their business ? Don't they see some
> > clear threats for their current business model ?
> 
> I think they just had to admit it. It does not seem they are 
> embracing GFOSS in any way.

What was in your opinion their general attitude? 

I know it's a question bordering stupidity, but I's like to get some sense of
what goes on in GFOSS. Not *within* GFOSS, of course, that's what we are doing
here. I'd like to have a feel about what does the GIS world "say" currently
about FOSS. And that discourse is led mainly by commercial GISmakers.

In server and desktop computing, the respective positions of FOSS and
propietary offerings are quite clear, IMHO. But I have no idea what kind of
discourses the propietary GIS makers have about GFOSS, or FOSS for that
matter, other the obvious facts: there is no commmercial major GIS for linux;
ESRI dropped UNIX completely; interoperation between propietary GIS is done
through files mostly. And yet, there is a contributing user base (for ESRI at
least, is it so with mapinfo?) with which they could have stronger bonds.

On another note, was there any final note on continuing the debate on some
public forum, mailing list, private list, anything pointing to further planned
debate? Any plans of doing so?

Daniel.