Thank you for this information. I am interested in the moral perspective on this. Propertiery GIS vendors are very clever and will find some loopholes to market as Open .

The irony is that over 10 years back when i started putting my ideas and frameworks in place for Open Principles in Science and Education, some of the propertiery GIS vendors were doing thier best indirectly to stop me , but now it seems they are working overtime trying to be Ambassodors of Openness!

I am also interested in how we can protect taxpayers money in this. The need for cost savings by using Open source GIS software will help the local authorities and various government departments in the UK in reducing huge licence fee costs for proprietary software and the UK Government and taxpayers as a whole will benefit from cost efficiencies, reduce the cost of lock-in to suppliers and products. This is especially important for future IT investments (for example Cloud Computing) , so that more options are explored and choices available. I presented my ideas on the importance of having a National level strategy for Open Principles in Geospatial [1] . Overview slides are at https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/national-level-strategy-for-open-principles-in-geospatial

It is my duty as a global citizen to work on this so our future generations are empowered fully.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/03/national-level-strategy-for-open-principles-in-geospatial-ideas-and-inputs-needed/

________________________________________
From: Eric Jukes <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 22 March 2017 9:41 PM
To: Anand Suchith
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is it possible for properitery GIS vendor to market thier properitery product as Open ?

Trade Descriptions Act 1968 (for U.K.) Purchaser should complain to their landlord local authority's Trading Standards department.

Eric Jukes

On 22 Mar 2017, at 20:19, Suchith Anand <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Hi all,

I have a query. If a properitery GIS vendor starts marketing thier properitery products as Open platform and software then what rights do the organisations and customers have who are mislead buying the properitery software thinking it is open have ? The definision of Proprietary software [1] is very clearly defined, so how can it be possible for any properitery GIS vendor to market their software knowingly as open platform if it is properitery?

This also greatly affects the business and revenues of true open source software companies . Who is responsible for any misleading marketing that results in losses to both customers who are mislead to buy the properitery software thinking it is open and also to other companies who do true open source business who lose out on the business opportunities? Is it right business ethics to do this?

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software