I thought I might put in my two cents worth. more from a philosophical and change management approach. I have found that to make the full jump to FOSS4G might be overwhelming for some. may I suggest a stepped approach where you run both FOSS and proprietary solutions in tandum and then pahse proprietary solutions out as they have been tested in FOSS? For instance, why not use GDAL/OGR to access data already in ArcSDE? GDAL Raster: http://www.gdal.org/frmt_sde.html OGR Vector: http://www.gdal.org/ogr/drv_sde.html if something more sophisticated is needed why not use things like WMS to serve out base info and WFS-T to manage workable data. That way you open up a realm of options for FOSS4G desktop clients with the security knowing your old systems are there if things don't work out as planned. Geoserver can help out with their SDE connector can help a lot http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Features then desktop applications can be deployed depending on what you need to do: Simple: UDIG JUMP GCSIG ...others more intensive (more to learn): GRASS / QGIS GMT (generic mapping tools) ... others Web: Mapserver mapbuilder mapbender openlayers ... endless list Once people start to see that the move is pretty easy then setup a plan to phase out licenses as they are replaced by FOSS solutions. the money savings will also be a big support as those funds are put towards people. When large projects make a change it's sometimes hard to change course of the ship. Shall we use a titanic metaphore? What about small changes over a long time instead of big changes over the short term. When looking at the data end of things keep an eye out for ESRI's method of connecting to a POSTGIS database. Migrating your data at that point may be easier. Once you have an open source data backend then tieing in all the other pieces become a cinch. Timing, Timing, Timing. There might be reason to still have access to a few licences as time goes on until costum applications or various data providers also make the switch or support your changes. If all else fails, export everything as SHP files, get postGIS going and do a massive load, go to sleep for a while, fix any missmatches, check your topology and then move into the world of FOSS4G. Although this was ot a step by step howto I hope it helps migrate some folks imediately and then they can help drive the others... Cheers
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of k4mik4ze Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 10:18 To: [email protected] Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re arcGIS and Grass compatibility (k4mik4ze) Thanks a lot, I know about migration proyects, and linux, but i had never migrated before GIS data, from arcGIS to X, so, I think the real question is, Can i develop a web application for grass, using all data available in a geo DATABASE? Thanks a lot, all information previously sent about this issue, was really helpfull, but i still need that question to get an answer. Thanks again. -- !!!***k4mik4ze***!!! Linux user #383955
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