Outreach "what is open source" and "migrate to open source" pages

[jodygarnett]

Our placeholder pages for outreach are going to need a consistent, succient story.

• [ ] what is open source - A3 brochure provides good starting point
• [ ] migrate to open source - #100 discussion indicates this will be a tough page to write

Some of these links used to be on the home page and were removed during the code sprint, we should double check what our message is and provide appropriate content.

[jodygarnett]

Collecting examples of how to write about migration:

• I really liked the https://www.nginx.com/faqs/ presentation of "Can NGINX replace ..."

[jodygarnett]

Initial content: http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/about/what-is-open-source/ (request for review sent to email lists).

[gisnederland]

Some remarks:

• "You are no longer tied to per-seat licensing or to a single software vendor." Applies to ArcGIS, but not to Mapinfo (and others), who have a reseller distribution system.
• "Open source has a long history in our geospatial field": simply give those examples. And add the fact this means open source software is sustainable, and thus a good investment when it comes to courses/education)
• "many visitors are initially looking for technology". I'd rather have them looking for a business solution ;-)

[jodygarnett]

Thanks @gisnederland, this text in the handout was originally much larger and has been cut down over time.

The "per seat license" is in response to a current change of licensing that I have been told about at many GIS conferences in 2017. It seems like good timing to mention it. What would you like to say to contrast with a reseller distribution system?

I also would like to see people looking for a solution, one trick I used as a consultant was to price solutions over three years in order to account for the initial discount proprietary companies often negotiate when bidding on a contract. I feel there may be a good article on "open source procurement" - I keep pitching it as a foss4g talk but it is never accepted.

I like your idea of giving an example, rather than stating their is a long history. I think it would be good to use one education example and one commercial example. Say GRASS for academic, and PostGIS for commercial?

• @pramsey do you have a handy PostGIS example we could use to demonstrate open source providing long term value in industry?

[gisnederland]

@jodygarnett I guess Geoserver might be a better example, since its main proprietary competitors (such as ArcGIS Server) are just in there teens (and their predecessors are still well known), whereas PostGIS's main competitor (the big "O") has an age of twenty-something.