On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 at 20:07, Andreas Neumann <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Nyall, > > Thanks for clarifying - I am relieved by your further statements ;-) > > I don't know a good replacement of ArcGIS Server portal (or whatever that > product is called currently). I agree that it would be great if there would > be a good replacement for that - and that would need further funding - and > perhaps a good collaboration between more than one of the OSGEO/QGIS > developer companies. I fear that any of the available OSGeo/QGIS companies on > it's own is too small to cover that fully. It probably needs something larger > on top of it, with the smaller already existing companies bringing in their > individual expertise to that larger entity. QGIS cloud from Sourepole was a > good start some years ago, but it would have to grow faster than it currently > does, and that would require a larger entity than Sourcepole (or most other > similar companies) are. And of course also more paying customers.
Just to clarify further -- I'm mostly talking about a private/on-premises offering, rather than a SAAS type offering. Of course, if someone wanted to take the components and offer as a paid cloud service (as Sourcepole does/did), then that's great! But it shouldn't be the initial goal... nyall > > The building blocks are mostly there, yes. > > Andreas > > > On 2020-06-09 11:45, Nyall Dawson wrote: > > On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 at 09:18, Nyall Dawson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 at 09:12, Tim Sutton <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi > > > Nice, thoughtful message below, thanks Jonathon. I wonder what it will take > to move the needle above 1%? And whether we should try to use our funds to > make that happen. QGIS is surely the most expressive way to do cartography of > any GIS out there (acknowledging total bias on my part) and seeing that > cartography on the web would surely please many people. Clients like QWC, > QWC2 or anything that requires you to hand edit a config file or log into a > unix shell to publish map services are probably the main limitation (no > offence to those tools). Also the lack of an built in tiling server (with > proper metalling and meta buffering) must surely be the other. Maybe a more > useful approach to your discussion below would be to promote funding the > elements that add resistance to deploying QGIS server……but then we would be > in new feature space and circling back to the idea of not funding QGIS Server > with grants….. > > > Something else to consider is whether technologies like WMS are > ultimately just "dead end" technologies now, and possibly we'd be > better off focusing on client side rendering of vector features from a > server (QGIS or other), and providing a library which can do > client-side rendering of vector tiles from QGIS symbology in as close > to 1:1 as possible... > > > Re-reading my message, I think it comes across unintentionally > critical. I was actually just "pondering aloud"! > > I definitely agree that there's a strong use case for a server > component which "just works" with QGIS, and I would hate to see this > efforts abandoned. Indeed, my personal opinion is that what osgeo is > really lacking is a unified solution to desktop/web/mobile. We have > all the raw building blocks, but there's just no direct equivalent of > ArcGIS portal where end users can easily publish datasets and maps. > Boundless was filling this gap with their offerings, but that's a > thing of the past now, and no-one has really stepped up to fill this > need. Possibly geonode + QGIS server backend is the closest we get, > but that's still needing significant investment before it's a really > compelling competitor. > > I'd really love to hear what solutions others deploy when they're > asked by a client to replace an ArcGIS desktop + Portal environment. > Perhaps there's actually a need for **more** investment in QGIS server > to fund development of a Portal style geo-cms, tightly integrated with > QGIS desktop (and QField/Input)*. > > Nyall > > * minus the completely broken-by-design security and data management > models used by Portal > > > > > > > > > Nyall > > > > Regards > > Tim > > On 8 Jun 2020, at 21:42, Jonathan Moules <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi List, > Some of you may have seen my blog post on the OSGeo-Discuss list about which > mapping servers are the most deployed. For those who haven't seen it, QGIS > Server has about 60 public deployments (1% of all of them), and it serves > 11,924 datasets (0.5% of all public geospatial WMS/WFS/WCS/WMTS datasets). > > Potentially controversial here and I appreciate it's not a competition, but > given the low uptake of QGIS Server compared to other Open Source offerings > (GeoServer: 964 deployments, 963,603 datasets; MapServer: 544 deployments, > 389,709 datasets), is QGIS Server something the grant program should be > funding? There are three Server proposals totalling €10,000, 22% of the fund. > > Now, before you get the pitchforks out(!), please consider the following: > > * Zero sum game - Any money spent on QGIS Server cannot be spent on QGIS > Desktop. (The grants mostly aren't things that will improve the shared QGIS > Core). (This reasoning also follows through to OSGeo funds). > > * Multiple solutions - Open Source (and OSGeo) already has a very healthy > ecosystem of mapping servers - does it need another one? > > * Limited number of users benefited - I don't have stats for it, but QGIS > Desktop is probably the most popular Open Source Desktop GIS, and is > certainly going to have many orders of magnitude more users than QGIS Server. > > * Playing to your strengths - QGIS' strength is it's Desktop and it's > generally good practice to play to your strengths. > > > So given the above, and that QGIS is already "winning" as an Open Source > Desktop (great job!), I'd like to suggest it's not a good idea to dilute the > limited resources by spending them on QGIS Server. Instead it seems that far > more people would benefit if that money was spent on Desktop, especially the > bug fixing programme. > > Or alternatively, given the "Unique Selling Point" of QGIS Server is its > integration with QGIS Desktop, those resources could be used to further > improve interoperability with GeoServer/MapServer/deegree/etc. Those are all > successful mature OSGeo projects that excel at serving maps, have an > architecture designed for it, and already have huge install bases. > > TLDR: QGIS excels at being a Desktop, and I'd like to suggest it should play > to its strengths and focus its limited funds there to benefit the most users. > > I shall now retreat to my bunker. :-) > > Cheers, > Jonathan > > Note: The above only applies to the Grant program and funding; how developers > wish to spend their time, and on which projects is of course their own > prerogative. > > (Disclosure: I have no horse in this race; I don't run or administer any > mapping servers, but I have done GeoServer in the past.) > > > > _______________________________________________ > QGIS-Developer mailing list > [email protected] > List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > > > — > > > > > > > > > > Tim Sutton > > Co-founder: Kartoza > Ex Project chair: QGIS.org > > Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source: > > Desktop GIS programming services > Geospatial web development > GIS Training > Consulting Services > > Skype: timlinux > IRC: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net > > I'd love to connect. Here's my calendar link to make finding time easy. > > _______________________________________________ > QGIS-Developer mailing list > [email protected] > List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > > _______________________________________________ > QGIS-Developer mailing list > [email protected] > List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > > _______________________________________________ QGIS-Developer mailing list [email protected] List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
