Tag Archives: philosophy

The Myth of Objectivity

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I do not advocate anything or anyone. All right, may be I do advocate but only a few small tiny things like C++ programming language, generic programming and high quality of software code and design and my dog, of course. However, I let myself to go down in the discussion about advantages and disadvantages of Open Source GIS on OGC forum at LinkedIn and somewhat at OSGeo mailing list too.

A human nature pisses me off, sometimes. (I am a human being, in case of doubt.) The world is bloody relative but we love to sling absolutes around. Yeah, we love this game! We are not good in learning from mistakes, anyway. Thus, the only achievement of attempting to apply a patch to someone’s buggy ignorance is a waste of time and may be a bit of training in fast typing or boxing ;-)

Paul is right recommending don’t feed the troll!. But, what has been learned is going to be lost, naturally.

French breakfast at Google

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French company sues Google over its Maps service

Google is looking to establish a monopoly in the mapping market.

Dear French guys, it seems you have woken up in the middle of the night and with one of hand in a chamberpot. Or you’ve just came back from long journey to Mars what would explain the disorientation and the fact you’ve overlooked the growing monopoly, which many see as having acquired too much power, too fast, without the wisdom to use that power responsibly.

In case you haven’t caught it yet: searching, mapping, e-mailing, multimedia & broadcasting, blogging & micro-bloging, documents, chats and business talks (many companies use Google Talk for communication, so Google has, and crackers may have too, fairly easy access to their business secrets), science & research (probably the highest density of PhD owners is in Google offices, but not in any university on the planet), storage of personal and sensitive information (medical records, health profiles, personality profiles, …), be or not to be (what’s not in Google it has never ever existed), <your favourite stuff goes here> All these belong to the Giant.

Vampires give interviews only in the movie. In real life, they suck the blood of the living.

Guys, give it up. Take your golden parachute. Relax. Book a flight to one of the sunny islands. Buy new shorts and live good life running a surf shop :-)

(in)dependency

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In times when independence is a deadly sin and in times of Google-like NDA-ization of nearly all professional activities of an individual…

…it’s quite extra-ordinary to have enough courage to shout out:

I don’t speak for my employer. For example, our site is one of those Flashy Internet dead-ends I’d never enter. See? I don’t speak for them.

or may be no courage is needed to criticize bad design ;-) BTW, it must be an old critique by Yossi. Now their website looks good.

OSGeo Tribulum

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The OSGeo Fundation is driven by volunteer manpower and sponsorship. The OSGeo Foundation is a proxy body that transfers contributions from sponsors to activities initiatives and projects that perform under the umbrella of OSGeo, to the OSGeo members. The OSGeo members (right column) are free to raise funds on their own. Some projects do it very well, some don’t do it at all (and it’s not any fault, it just happens). However, all participants are eligible to accept OSGeo support in the same way, scale, etc. For instance, all members use OSGeo brand, OSGeo infrastructure, OSGeo marketing efforts and many more. The OSGeo Foundation membership is a value. Period.

Let’s make it straight. What about reversing the direction of flow of support? Should there be any reason to not to ask projects to support OSGeo Foundation? If a project is well funded by 3rd party organizations, it should be a part of fair play to expect a minimal tribulum paid back to OSGeo. Actually, this mechanism has been included as a part of the Project Sponsorship program:

One quarter of the sponsorship amount will be put into the general OSGeo account for any OSGeo use (such as paying hosting costs, general promotion, etc)

Does it apply in case OSGeo member project gets funds through a back door?

There are bills to be paid, there is always a lot of work to get done around OSGeo activities, meaning there are expectations, there are loads of tasks that need to be accomplished in reasonable amount of time, but a limited resources available.

Disclaimer: I was born in socialistic republic that no longer exists, but it does not mean I believe in socialism or that I’d like to see OSGeo being converted into communist party and Tyler flying to North Korea with official visit to give Kim a hug.

I believe in joint responsibility and fair play.