I do not doubt, ESRI software engineers are nice guys – I think, there is no difference between “them” and “us” (maybe, yes – they are much better, then I ever will be ;-) We know, they are keeping their eye on us. But the developers are usually not the ones, who deside about sponsorship.

On the other hand, if ESRI would offer me ticket to Victoria and back, I would wear their T-shirt during the conference proudly :-)

Also, they are using GDAL in their ArcGIS product. Some of their processing tools also support the use of Python (they actually ship Python in their products!). So, their engineers are not ignorant or antagonistic toward open source, at least not as far as I can tell. In some real ways you can say they actually rely on OSS.

I understand your concern about “marketing” instead of “producing” OSS products. Obviously attendees will be looking for the OSS connection, so “pounding chests” from a typical sales angle wouldn’t help them much anyway.

But, in your mind, how do they differ from other companies that are leveraging open source alongside proprietary code? I mean they now fund, implement, use, repackage, distribute and sell OSS components within proprietary products. Perhaps they only need to be communicating this more publicly in a supportive way to gain respect?

At this point they are users and supporters, perhaps someday they will be direct contributors too. But will they have to release one of their own products into open source before they can be regarded as supporting open source? Or, like many of us, can they remain users and supporters of certain projects/efforts and eventually gain more OSS karma? ;)

Just a thought that generally applies to many similar scenarios…
Tyler

You can now submit to english RSS channel too.