Folks, Tilottama Ghosh's remark re "... how unaffordable ... " motivates this (mostly) lurker to riff (once again) a bit thereon.
I'm the lead developer on a free open source application that does Computer-Aided Dispatch management, AKA CAD. Now CAD, IMO, is the quintessential example of location-aware technology. And has been, since its inception AFAIK in the late 1950's. For the CAD-unaware among you, it's ubiquitous; if you dial the equivalent of the US 911, the odds are high that the call-taker is at a CAD terminal, capturing the information needed for a response by the nearest suitable response unit. At it's most elementary, CAD can help answer questions re where are the response resources, and where are the incidents that require their attention. In many (most?) instances it supports a 24x7 operation. But not all CAD usage is of the "Dude, where's my ambulance?" type. As example, some of our users have expanded on that theme to implement a "Call us if you're too drunk to drive for a ride home by a sober driver" (although presumably not too drunk to call). Others schedule and provide emergency transport during worst weather conditions (hello, UK!), and others (lots, actually) use it to manage special events, in which medical attention may be needed. Notably, many of these teams are staffed by volunteers, and you can readily draw correct inferences re their budgets for products like CAD. While "CAD" is readily recognized as an application area, its basic capabilities - if suitably conceived and designed - can be closely associated with Situational Awareness, a possibly even more universal need. The motivation behind our developing Tickets CAD was that despite CAD's relative maturity as an application area as well as its ubiquity, the commercial marketplace's requirements for revenue has resulted in an underserved community. It's indicative that 45% of the downloads from SourceForge are consistently from non-US sources. (And we think that WE have budget problems!) So what's behind this diatribe? Well, it's mostly a consciousness raising exercise, intended to familiarize those not already aware that CAD is, arguably, THE GIS application, and to encourage those of you to devote some thought to how the skills and creativity on clear display here might be focused to meet the needs I've expanded a bit upon above. Arnie Shore Project Tickets CAD www.ticketscad.org _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
