Wat betekent "open" echt voor jou?

Question

<\/HEAD>Onlangs kwam ik een interessante blogpost tegen op KnowWhere <\/A> genaamd "Esri is niet slecht<\/A>". Ik was echt onder de indruk van de openheid van de auteur die zichzelf een open source-voorvechter noemt. Hij stelt enkele goede vragen. Wat is open eigenlijk? En kan een bedrijf als Esri met proprietary software ook open zijn?<\/P><\/P> Ik denk dat het goed is om duidelijk te zijn over wat open echt betekent. Willen we het hebben over open source? Bedoelen we open data? Of liever open specs? Of willen we open businessmodellen<\/A> bespreken? Dit helpt verwarring tijdens een discussie te voorkomen.<\/P><\/P> Esri onderhoudt een website over zijn open visie<\/A> die ik ten zeerste aanbeveel om te lezen. Het legt duidelijk Esri's begrip van open uit en hoe het bedrijf de verschillende categorieën ondersteunt. Redelijk genoeg.<\/P><\/P> Maar hoe kijk jij naar open? Wat is jouw begrip? En wat betekent het uiteindelijk echt voor jou? Laat ons jouw mening weten!<\/P> <\/P> Met vriendelijke groet, Lars<\/P> <\/P> <\/P><\/BODY><\/HTML>

Raul_Jimenez · Answer

I wrote an article about this a few months ago... "open" means too many things, but I think each one would understand "open" differently based on the context you use to use it.

You can search "open" in a thesaurus, in the wikipedia, or anywhere else and you will find different meanings. The three of us writing here use to work with developers and startups, and if a tech company use the term "open" will understand "open" as "Open source", that's why I use to say.... to avoid misunderstandings we should tray to avoid the sentence: "Esri is Open", because it will likely lead open a discussion with many people.

I really believe in the Esri Open Vision, which doesn't mean (of course) that our business model or core products are open/open source.

Cheers!

BTW: Google is another great example of company promoting and embracing open source but their core products are not open, their business model either, etc <- and I also believe that Google also deserves to call themselves "a company with an open vision", don't you?.

smcgee2 · Answer

Open source means in my opinion the product’s code is openly readable to anyone. If for example it’s an API, the actual API is readable.

Easy to see why open source is a good. Community collaboration, there’s no hidden agendas and it’s normally free to use. I use many open source tools and products in my everyday life. It’s a community that is, and always will be needed.

That being said. I use many closed source products too. Products that I trust wholeheartedly that they’re done properly and I expect to work.

Open and closed source work well separately and together. Esri has a good mix. An example is the JavaScript API. It’s closed source but there’s plenty of community support available still. Open source projects on GitHub, sample code and Esri genuinely try to help the developer community. It's free(mostly) to develop and try out. When you start to profit, money goes to support the creators. I think that makes sense.

I could write pages about this... But this is an overview of my opinion.