685Still Not Getting it

It's a good argument when you believe that the only thing open source has going for it is that it's free.

I am the author of the blog you are referencing. Just like a diamond, this issue has many sides (you can tell that I like analogies). The developer community sees one side, and for that side, represented by your opinion, I am restating the obvious. There are other sides. My blog is targeted to my readers, who are also my clients or prospects. They are municipal engineers, planners, administrators. And a lot of them "don't get it" if I have to use your terminology. A lot of municipal GIS implementers, with little or no IT experience, think that open source *does* equal free. For them is the bicycle analogy.

So why don't you educate them about the freedom aspect? Why tell them only that between open and proprietary it's all a wash?

It just amazes me how hard it is for folks to get beyond the cost aspect of FOSS. I never bring up costs in my marketing, but the freedom FOSS offers. It seems to me folks don't even listen to what I'm saying. My hats off to those that have been dealing with this problem for years.

Around here for GIS commercial software the customer pays the licenses and the implementer, expecially in the server space. I might just be lucky with my customers, but apparently most of them get it quite right: no license + full price service = 50% off.

@alexamici: ABSOLUTELY. I work with both flavors and my fees usually do not vary. Licensing does...

How many time does it have to be said ? Many, maybe written on the moon, not to forget... In April, the french GeoEvenement will begin an "Open Source conferences session" (http://www.ortech.fr/geo-evenement/jeudi_5_avril.php) by this conference (harldy translated) : "Open-Source software, true opportunity or cost-free illusion ?".

First off, for the record, I am not affiliated with any software vendor. Secondly, I work in an environment totally dominated by ESRI. In New Jersey, the state and all county governments are heavily invested in ESRI technology. So, to a would-be local NJ municipal implementer, the question is not 'what?' but 'how much?'. Typically, the first words out of a NJ municipal official's mouth would be that their town wants to implement ArcView (*not* GIS), and would want to know the cost. The 'freedom' that the developer community values in open source is very different from the 'freedom' a municipal official wants -- the freedom from worry that there will be no support tomorrow for the solution they implement today. On a very rare occasion (I have a handful of examples) will a municipality see the perceived zero cost of implementing FOSS as a sufficiently attractive offset for the perceived uncertainty of implementing FOSS. So, without taking sides, my post points out that the implementation cost of FOSS is not 'zero'. I hope I was clear.

atanas entchev says "In New Jersey, the state and all county governments are heavily invested in ESRI technology". Same here, north of the border. Even NGO's are in that situation ! And why is that ? Part of the answer lies in the fact that all our universities have almost solely proprietary geomatics software labs. We should start a domain : edu4edu.org, as in education for educational institutions.

Yves Moisan says: "Part of the answer lies in the fact that all our universities have almost solely proprietary geomatics software labs." How true this is! I was indoctrinated into GIS while doing graduate studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ in 1991. We used PC ARC/INFO. As I was graduating, ESRI released ArcView 1, which promptly found its way into the Rutgers computer lab. The rest is history, as they say.

Atanas, your post was half flamebait, half cute analogy that doesn't hold up. Linux a wasted effort? Open source GIS a wasted effort by implication? Ridiculous.

Posting 'flamebait' wasn't my intention, but I should have known better, entering a minefield... :)

Atanas: Maybe your NJ municipal purchasers need to be gently encouraged to think outside the big box labelled "ESRI"? Talk to other similar organisations who are already exploring alternatives that they think might save them time/money? Try Jason Birch at Nanaimo, BC, for example: http://www.jasonbirch.com/nodes/category/nanaimo/ James Fee is right about the nature of "freedom" in this context, and here in the UK and the wider EU, we are seeing a growing trend of public sector organisations looking at "free" alternatives to the big lock-in contracts with the likes of Microsoft etc for various application areas, even if they are not yet ready to let go of MS-Mommy's hand completely. It's very early days yet, but it looks to me like the GIS sector may be at the beginning of a similar process. And even in the paid-for GIS market, ESRI is not the only option, it's just the biggest (in all kinds of ways :0)).