@article {235,
	title = {Reassuring End Users Of Open Source: The OSGeo Example},
	journal = {Open Source Business Resource},
	year = {2009},
	month = {02/2009},
	publisher = {Talent First Network},
	type = {Articles},
	address = {Ottawa},
	abstract = {Furthering the adoption of open source software (OSS) is often seen as a natural, contagious progression as more developers and users share with others about the success of their projects. But how can an open source project even hope to compete with proprietary commercial products with massive marketing budgets and staff? Aside from not typically having large financial resources for marketing, other factors can lead enterprise users to look elsewhere for guarantees of product longevity and a robust support ecosystem around the product. Without these features, many users and businesses alike would not consider the software as an option or have a desire to become involved.

This is equally true with open source geospatial software projects which are focused on presenting freely available mapping and geographic analysis tools to the world. The Open Source Geospatial Foundation seeks to address the needs mentioned above, to promote the excellent software that is available, and to provide a model where businesses can join in promotion and development. OSGeo undertook some novel approaches to encouraging new and existing support options which boosted confidence within the business sector by helping to ensure that project code will be publicly accessible for years to come.

In this article, we discuss the factors needed to get open source geospatial products into the hands of those users willing to test, use and eventually admire them as their favourites, or to go one step further and recommend them as a corporate solution. We examine the advantages provided by using marketing to help promote open source projects and then consider how this can boost business confidence in the use of the software. The article closes with a look at how a natural ecosystem of open source users is able to create something bigger and more consequential than each project could attain on its own.},
	issn = {1913-6102},
	url = {http://timreview.ca/article/235},
	author = {Tyler Mitchell}
}
