2025-11-05 –, Regency Ballroom B
What are we "selling" when offering enterprise software with open source components? Spoiler alert--it's not simply feature parity with a proprietary closed-source equivalents. How do we calibrate messaging that sells while fostering the ecosystem we care about?
As an enterprise vendor of network management software to the Telco and Utility sectors, IQGeo makes heavy use of FOSS4G projects such as PostGIS and OpenLayers as well as lower-profile libraries such as Shapely. In 2025, how we talk about the value proposition of geospatial open source is deeply intertwined with adjacent concerns such as interoperability, security, scalability, and the end-user experience. Brian will discuss both the challenges and opportunities for FOSS projects in an enterprise environment that has moved beyond a simple “Open vs Closed” binary mindset to reckoning with paradigm shifts such as the Cloud and now, of course, AI.
With twenty-five years in various branches of the Geospatial ecosystem such as defense, telecom, energy, and local government, Brian has accumulated a variety of opinions on map interfaces, data quality, enterprise anthropolgy, and the persistent usefulness of SQL. His writing appears at Mapbrief.com and monologues from various geo gatherings are available online as well.