FOSS4G Erratum
by Sebastian Benthall
Thanks to Jody Garnett and Archeogeek for their correcting my misrepresentation of OSGeo in my first post from FOSS4G. As they point out, OSGeo does not, as an organization, have it in for ESRI. Rather, their mission is a purely positive one: “support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technologies and data.” Indeed, I had no right to speak for the organization at all, having been exposed to it directly really only for a few days at that point.
Apologies for being caught up in the irrational exuberance of the moment, projecting my own opinions on the rest of the community, and generally overstepping.
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[…] Culture shock I have the privilege of attending FOSS4G 2008 (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) in Cape Town this year as an engineer for OpenGeo. This is my first time attending a technology conference, and so came with few expectations. But what I had gathered from colleagues who have attended in the past was this conference is primarily for hackers and open source entrepreneurs who are committed to the free software paradigm and bringing it to the GIS world. The event is put on by OSGeo, which is unguarded about its goal to piss off ESRI, the monopolistic proprietary GIS giant who we believe misserves their costumers and, indirectly, the general public. (Author’s note: Please see comments below and retraction, here.) […]
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