Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Live DVD advice

2015-06-28 Thread punk . kish



 On Jun 28, 2015, at 12:46 AM, Brent Wood pcr...@pcreso.com wrote:
 
 I can't reasonably use Postgis on a read only filesystem, and all the later 
 guides assume that tiles will be used. Does anyone have any advice as to how 
 I might best do this?


Pre-generate tiles and serve them via nginx on the server side and leafletjs on 
the client. No server-side technology involved all, just static files. Will 
work like a charm.


—
Puneet Kishor
Just Another Creative Commoner
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] The importance of having Open Principles in Education for our future generations

2015-06-28 Thread Randal Hale
If a bootable USB version could be developed for schools/kids with 
suggestions of buy this USB drive and here's how you load everything - 
that would help in a lot of cases. BUT


 * I underestimate the kids abilities - some are very sharp - some look
   for the anykey.
 * In general many of the teachers work at their tech limit - so if you
   came up with a scenario of booting a computer into another
   operating system you will scare a lot of them. This is a flip phone
   crowd we're dealing with. Tech isn't their friend - it should be but
   it isn't.

I think that's where we can play a role - the ESRI rollout was botched 
in my opinion because it only targeted schools with resources. The 
schools I like don't have that - but they have good kids and good 
teachers. ESRI begged beyond the photo ops with their employees for 
GISP's to help get their software working. Internet is a luxury at the 
school - they have problems if too many kids click on youtube at once. 
So I think OSGEO provides a rollout for the rest of the kids that can't 
afford the tech and the time with the cloud.


Maybe my fantasy is:

 * Bootable USB for easy upgrades to software (beyond the OSGEO Live
   Disk - to many options will flip people out)
 * USB has QGIS, DATA, and a lesson plan. A lesson plan that might
   tackle a very believable scenario kids can relate tomaybe it's a
   neighborhood and school where you answer questions about
   transportation, where students live, where they go to the grocery
   store, etc...the second half will be what their school and
   neighborhood looks like. Maybe they map their school and surrounding
   area.
 * Lesson plan has to be easy for teachers to digest - some don't know
   what GSI is (that was intentional because it's a very foreign
   concept to them).
 * Rainforests and counting coffee shops isn't something they will care
   about. How their neighborhood looks and how they live - that will
   get some attention from the US kids. I assume all kids. BUT - I'm
   not a teacher.


Randy



On 06/27/2015 07:28 PM, Vaclav Petras wrote:


On Sat, Jun 27, 2015 at 5:59 PM, Tom Roche tom_ro...@pobox.com 
mailto:tom_ro...@pobox.com wrote:


Randal Hale Fri, 26 Jun 2015 16:17:54 -0400[2]
 Ms Keith (on this list as of last night and cc'd) has a lab but it is 
quickly going out of date
with regards to proprietary software. My wish has been to replace
everything with QGIS - GIS is GIS.

And OS[3] are OS, so maximize the utility of the

 older computers at schools [being used] for learning

and slap a Linux on them. The OSGeo wiki points to some bundles,
including (e.g.) DebianGIS[4], Enterprise Linux GIS[5], and
UbuntuGIS[6] (of which, IIUC, the latter is the most active).


And sure enough, there are Linux distributions designed to work well 
on (very) low-end hardware, for example Lubuntu [1] and Xubuntu [2].


[1] http://lubuntu.net/
[2] http://xubuntu.org/


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--
-
Randal Hale
North River Geographic Systems, Inc
http://www.northrivergeographic.com
423.653.3611 rjh...@northrivergeographic.com
twitter:rjhale http://about.me/rjhale
http://www.northrivergeographic.com/introduction-to-quantum-gis
Southeast OSGEO: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Southeast_US

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] The importance of having Open Principles in Education for our future generations

2015-06-28 Thread Ravi Kumar
The developing world including India battles a scourge 'P I R A C Y'.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/it-services/Nehru-Place-A-beehive-for-software-piracy/articleshow/11349126.cms
Unless this affliction to society is cured, Open Source Software will have
very slow growth.
While I teach Open GIS, I am flooded with questions like, 'Where is the
employment prospect'. (Their answer) 'Learn the popular GIS and the
Students will find a sure job'..
With Govt of India pitching for Open Source, is to be added with a vigorous
'Anti-Piracy Policy'.. Call it 'Zero Tolerance'. While at FOSS4G India 2015
Dehradun, a speaker from Gujarat narrated a story of how schools were
supplied with computers with no other Operating System but an Ubuntu DVD.
Schools, are in a state that they are not even aware of 'The Existance of
OS, and it's need'. They just shifted to the popular OS, and it is an easy
guess HOW.
So when it comes to countries like India (and other developing countries),
education of Open-GIS, has to include merits of FOSS, and FOSSGIS.

The most popular proprietary GIS in India, is available every where, with
what is known as a 'CRACK', to open. There are hardly any legal cases that
can be searched on the WEB.

Ravi

On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 3:39 AM, Suchith Anand 
suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk wrote:

 Colleagues,

 It was just by coincidence while i was working on getting data for a
 research paper  on How to quantify the economic impact of Open Source
 Geospatial software   that i came across  Randal Hale's email's on the
 difficulties faced by one high school in the USA for Proprietary software
 updates [1]. It was a clear wake up call on the consequences of Proprietary
 GIS agenda for schools and education. It was then i decided to send an Open
 request to  AAG  [2]and humbly request AAG to specifically include Open
 Education principles firmly in the new Advanced Placement course in
 Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST).

 But on 22nd June 2015 when i read Dave Murray's (GIS Coordinator, City of
 Westminster, USA ) reply email on this ,i realised that this is a much
 wider problem  and we need to make all colleagues globally aware of the
 dangers of falling into some Proprietary vendor's very clever marketing
 trap.  Dave has kindly given me permission to share his email with the
 wider geo community  so the wider community is aware of these kind of
 marketing gimmicks and vendor lock-in tactics. It will help others realise
 the costs of being silent  as it is affecting not just government
 departments such as City of Westminister in USA and hundreds of other
 organisations worldwide  but our future generations education
 opportunities. I am determined to do my best to make sure education is not
 at the dictates of any vendor.

 Dave and  City of Westminster, USA are  just one of thousands who fall in
 the marketing gimmicks of various proprietary vendor's trap. Unfortunately
 many are very scared even to discuss this in public.

 In fact, the questions i asked AAG is also valid for all other educational
 initiatives worldwide to avoid them falling into these kind of marketing
 strategies of some Proprietary GIS vendors. I request all governments,
 universities in their education policy  worldwide  to look into the
 following important criteria :

 *  What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep
 providing free services/software for the long term?
 *  If the Proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other
 conditions in say 5 or 10 years time what will happen to these hundreds of
 thousands of students? Can  anyone give us any guarantee.?
 *  If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 or
 10 years time?  Will it be the schools who have to pay or the government
 will give them funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS
 vendor?
 *  If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program  ?
  *  What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms
 later?

 I really hope these thousands of schools and teachers (affecting hundreds
 of thousands of students) will not fall into this proprietary vendor's
 marketing trap and be at the mercy of vendor dictates later (in just 3-5
 year's time) .  Randal Hale's email has been eye opener for all and i
 decided to do my best so these schools do not have to suffer when they
 change their conditions later and the schools are unable or forced to pay
 these ridiculous costs later (as Dave's organisation City of Westminister
 have realised later).

 It is a wider education problem that as educators we need to be aware of.
 It will really be a missed opportunity for a generation and we  should not
 allow that (esp as we now know the background marketing gimmicks and vendor
 lock-in tactics and experiences from those affected previously). The
 schools should be investing precious resources on other important things
 (getting more teachers, investing in