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: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
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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