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| Subject: | RE: GISList: Compressed Terrain Data |
| Date: |
01/07/2003 11:20:56 AM |
| From: |
Jeff Hankley |
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Cameron,
I have the same question after reading this discussion. I think people are =
not used to the open source profit model yet, where it is not the software =
that makes money, but the support of said software. OSS (Open Source Softwa=
re) companies, including Red Hat make their software available for free dow=
nload (including the source code), as long as you can figure out how to use=
it, and don't need their help, which is probably (and this is a stab in th=
e dark) less than 25% of users. The money is made when those users want sup=
port. The vendor can then offer several tiers of support based on the user'=
s needs. There is also, then, the opportunity to develop a certification fo=
r said support to offer to consulting companies, thereby deriving further p=
rofits. It takes a bit of thought to understand why this model works, but t=
his model also helps keep software prices much more reasonable. The key her=
e, however, is the source code. In the OSS model, source code is like a sci=
entific publication, where other scientists (programmers, developers) are a=
ble to read the published findings and improve upon the theory, therefore f=
acilitating innovation throughout the industry. The source code is protecte=
d under the GPL (Gnu Public License) which basically says that the user can=
not just recompile the source code and sell the software as their own, and =
that they must provide the source code of the software to whomever they giv=
e it to. This is a form of copyright that keeps people from using your work=
to make money, but allows them to improve it if they can.
This model may not be suitable for everyone, but in a scientific discipline=
such as ours, I believe that it is the best way to go. I am currently buil=
ding my CS knowledge and programming skills to begin undertaking some of th=
is, but I have a ways to go before I am comfortable writing programs for di=
stribution. I say this so that you know I am not just an idealist that want=
s to see this happen, but a GIS professional determined on making it happen=
. I hope that this has been informative, I will now remove myself from my s=
oapbox. Good luck to all of you who develop software, no matter how you cho=
ose to license it.=20=20=20
-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron Crum=20
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2003 2:12 AM
To: dar@manifold.net
Cc: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: Re: GISList: Compressed Terrain Data
So I guess my obviously rhetorical question would be after all this....why =
don't
you make the Manifold product open source and give it away? Like you, we ha=
ve
spent years developing software (in a different but related industry) and t=
his
new compression technique came out of it by necessity. We believe that the
product is a higher quality product than what is available for free and its=
size
makes it attractive to people who need large amounts of this type of data on
their machine. In my line of work, I frequently do work in the field on a l=
aptop
and simply can't spare an extra few gigs of space just to store all the ter=
rain
data I need. Also, the quads will certainly be affordable at $0.50 per quad=
. I
believe this meets all your criteria for GIS...high quality, affordable, and
professional.
Cameron
Dimitri Rotow wrote:
> > So, assuming you have been churning away at this capacity (and it is
> > pretty nice, $13.5M per year gross) for seven years, and have never sold
> > to the same person twice, that would put the total number of users at
> > 385000. Right in the meaty part of the "hundreds of thousands" figure
> > you are so vociferously disputing.
> >
> > One would think having "only" hundreds of thousands of users was a bad
> > thing, the way you talk :)
>
> I guess it is to the likes of Microsoft :-) but very appealing for us. As
> you've pointed out in your analysis one doesn't really have to sell very
> many units before the money starts piling up in worthwhile amounts.
>
> Look, my whole intent in all of this is trying to change the mindset of t=
he
> GIS industry, to help people wake up to what is going on around them. I
> lived through the annihilation of minicomputers in the late 1980's and I
> could see the real pain that the extinction of minicomputers caused for my
> friends who were working in those companies. I also saw the
> self-marginalization of a lot of really talented technical people as they
> responded to the PC challenge by turning away, by cocooning themselves in
> UNIX dreams, by finding refuge in ever-dwindling sales of very expensive
> stuff to ever smaller numbers of minicomputer buyers.
>
> I don't want that to happen to the people I know in GIS. There is a lot =
of
> accumulated experience and ideas that I would like to see transferred to =
the
> new wav
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