Open source tools such as QGIS, PostGIS, and GDAL now sit underneath a growing share of the geospatial software that local governments, utilities, and engineering firms depend on every day. That creates practical questions for both sides of the table. Who is accountable when something breaks? How should commercial vendors contribute back to the projects they rely on? And can an enterprise team trust its data, its CAD-to-GIS workflows, and its long-term roadmap to software no single company owns?
This panel brings three perspectives into one conversation: a software CEO whose cloud platform connects directly to QGIS, a longtime leader in the US QGIS community, and a civil CAD designer who lives with the downstream results in enterprise project delivery. Together they will discuss where open and commercial models reinforce each other, where the real friction sits, including support, governance, security, and data standards, and what practitioners should ask before committing to any platform, open or proprietary.
Moderator
Carla Lauter
Senior Content Manager, Geo Week News
