RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS
So, who's going to condense this and related threads into a presentation at FOSS4G2008? It's the sort of input a lot of people are interested in. Gavin -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Micha Silver Sent: 26 April 2008 04:32 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS Andre Grobler wrote: ... So the hurdles for me to OS were acceptance specifically for the following reasons: Free and easy access and training of ESRI at varsity. Autocad did the same and look where that got them. Linux, just mentioning command lines has me a little nervous. (I know this is changing, but the field calculator is enough programming for me, thanks) ... So in short I am doing what somebody already suggested, get ESRI for day to day soft landing and learn OS GRASS and OSSIM meanwhile for real work;-) Hopefully in a while I'll wonder what the fuss was about... and possibly contribute, if only to the dummies FAQ section. André Grobler Andre: I had the privilege recently to give a short beginners course in GIS to a small group of undergrads in environmental science. Before the semester started I had decided to give the course based on FOSS tools. I first sat down with the network technician, who told me that they have ArcGIS 9, network licence, but he don't know where the disks were, and was concerned about space on the server, network traffic, bogging down their Terminal Server etc, etc. So I (rubbing my hands together) told him, no problem, we're going with Open Source Software. Turned out some of the students had MACs and one was using Ubuntu, so the choice to go with OSS tools was a no brainer. To my surprise, by the forth lesson we had gotten to watershed analysis, and students were running the GRASS modules (within QGIS). Admittedly we leapfrogged over some stuff, but still I doubt I could have reached that level with Arc* tools in such a short time span. The comfort zone problem is well know and likely the most difficult hurdle to overcome when trying to migrate to OSS tools. But to some extent it's nothing more than a matter of perception. Proprietary software vendors have surrounded us with distorting mirrors. Once you step away, things look quite different. Regards, Micha ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS
Here's another slightly different point of view... I like the fact that many open source projects haven't been focused on targeting users of particular brands of software. It has allowed the projects to develop to be what the developers think they should be, without a constant check like Have we arrived yet to challenge vendor X's package with 100% features?. While I understand the need to compare OSS with popular proprietary apps, for the sake of helping other users migrate, I think it is important to remember that open source programs don't always specifically target replacing them. This can lead to thinking that proprietary apps have some special combination of tools, usability and functions that must be mimicked - but its a subtle shift to just focus on user needs instead of on how to do a 100% feature match to some other standard. It doesn't mean, of course, that some other package has a bunch of features worth implementing, but I think our standards should be (1) user need and (2) developer interest - without either of those a project is bloated or dead. We likely all know proprietary software that has features that cost a lot but that are ones you never use or care about. Let's not make the same mistake. I know we aren't, but thought you might find this viewpoint interesting to consider. Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS
Hi, This brings to mind an additional point. Even though OS GIS tends to be a patchwork of projects that demand a good deal of experience from its users, it also gives you infinite extensibility. From a business perspective, this affords a proficient user of OS the ability to exploit automated workflow processes. Many use cases involve repetitive drudge work that can be automated if you have access to the code and/or knowledge of scripting. This is often possible with commercial products too, but OS usually has more hooks to feed a workflow and you can resort to the code if required. Since we are in the internet era, workflows tend to get pushed further out into the cloud which is why WPS has a lot of promise and means that the push button= result will be mandatory. The public use of GIS workflow demands simplicity, possibly over simplicity. randy -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andre Grobler Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 5:39 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS I'm very new at OS, have worked 10 years on AV3.x and a little Idrisi, but only from a vegetation point of view, so we're talking basic end-user digitizer mapper (and georef images), bit of topographical modeling and extracting underlying information. I wanted to do OS when starting my own company, but time constraints had me take a loan to get Windows Office and ArcView, just because I knew what I would get, and be able to get up and running on it within a week. I now realize most of the things I need to do in day to day, I could do in OS Q-GIS albeit with a little less sleekness. But I could not risk letting work slide (or causing clients, who use ESRI, hassles) to get up and running in Q-GIS, GRASS and possibly OSSIM. So the hurdles for me to OS were acceptance specifically for the following reasons: Free and easy access and training of ESRI at varsity. Autocad did the same and look where that got them. Linux, just mentioning command lines has me a little nervous. (I know this is changing, but the field calculator is enough programming for me, thanks) I'm not suggesting anybody is obliged to fix these things, I mean there's no such thing as a free lunch. I'm just saying what OS inherently is, is probably going to keep it out of the mainstream (non-programming) end-users easy reach. So in short I am doing what somebody already suggested, get ESRI for day to day soft landing and learn OS GRASS and OSSIM meanwhile for real work;-) Hopefully in a while I'll wonder what the fuss was about... and possibly contribute, if only to the dummies FAQ section. André Grobler -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 26 April 2008 10:49 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [!! SPAM] Discuss Digest, Vol 16, Issue 28 Send Discuss mailing list submissions to discuss@lists.osgeo.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Discuss digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)? (RAVI KUMAR) 2. Re: Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)? (Cameron Shorter) 3. Re: Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)? (Wolf Bergenheim) 4. Re: Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)? (RAVI KUMAR) 5. Re: Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)? (Malte Halbey-Martin) -- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:31:47 -0700 (PDT) From: RAVI KUMAR [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as withESRI)? To: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi, this is the kind of question I face when in my lectures evangelising OS GIS. ArcGIS has many tools, though some prefer to call it a deluge of tools, which almost distance the user from understanding the concept of GIS. Auto Complete Polygon: In Qgis which is a very userfriendly OS GIS you have 'Cut polygon', do try and find the difference. Polygonising from lines: Open JUMP has one of the most userfriendly approaches. Create lines and polygonise in OpenJUMP and the software automatically creates a folder for Dangles (un-wanted line pieces) The query is more for Vector GIS, I suppose. GRASS GIS: It has so many features for Image analysis and Raster GIS, the commercial GIS need a barge pole to even touch it. The vector Part of GRASS is robust too. Ravi
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS
Andre Grobler wrote: ... So the hurdles for me to OS were acceptance specifically for the following reasons: Free and easy access and training of ESRI at varsity. Autocad did the same and look where that got them. Linux, just mentioning command lines has me a little nervous. (I know this is changing, but the field calculator is enough programming for me, thanks) ... So in short I am doing what somebody already suggested, get ESRI for day to day soft landing and learn OS GRASS and OSSIM meanwhile for real work;-) Hopefully in a while I'll wonder what the fuss was about... and possibly contribute, if only to the dummies FAQ section. André Grobler Andre: I had the privilege recently to give a short beginners course in GIS to a small group of undergrads in environmental science. Before the semester started I had decided to give the course based on FOSS tools. I first sat down with the network technician, who told me that they have ArcGIS 9, network licence, but he don't know where the disks were, and was concerned about space on the server, network traffic, bogging down their Terminal Server etc, etc. So I (rubbing my hands together) told him, no problem, we're going with Open Source Software. Turned out some of the students had MACs and one was using Ubuntu, so the choice to go with OSS tools was a no brainer. To my surprise, by the forth lesson we had gotten to watershed analysis, and students were running the GRASS modules (within QGIS). Admittedly we leapfrogged over some stuff, but still I doubt I could have reached that level with Arc* tools in such a short time span. The comfort zone problem is well know and likely the most difficult hurdle to overcome when trying to migrate to OSS tools. But to some extent it's nothing more than a matter of perception. Proprietary software vendors have surrounded us with distorting mirrors. Once you step away, things look quite different. Regards, Micha ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Comparison between Proprietary and OS
Micha observations as to what his students have in terms of hardware is an important one. In North America this past year 40% of entering undergrads went off to university toting Mac laptops. Consequently, ESRI's current Window-centric focus offers a nice opportunity for open source desktop tools in the education arena. To also follow up Micha's comments, I teach a capstone fourth year course in which student teams develop a marketing plan for an outside organization. Half my teams this year had retail clients, and each of the teams with retail clients did some type of GIS analysis. I was able to get each team going with about 40 minutes of instruction on GIS tools (this is how you load a layer, this is what a projection is, this is how you do basic choropleth symbology, etc.), placing links to the appropriate project sites to get software and training documents, providing appropriate predigested shapefiles of attribute data on my course web site, and the teams were good to go. Some teams selected QGIS, others uDig, and PAGC was used for geocoding. My two observations from this (which will not be a surprise) is that better tools are needed for printing and laying out maps (another +1 for the OSGeo Cartographic Library initiative), and that students (or at least students in Marketing) have a complete lack of prior exposure to command line tools. Dan On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 17:31 +0300, Micha Silver wrote: Andre Grobler wrote: ... So the hurdles for me to OS were acceptance specifically for the following reasons: Free and easy access and training of ESRI at varsity. Autocad did the same and look where that got them. Linux, just mentioning command lines has me a little nervous. (I know this is changing, but the field calculator is enough programming for me, thanks) ... So in short I am doing what somebody already suggested, get ESRI for day to day soft landing and learn OS GRASS and OSSIM meanwhile for real work;-) Hopefully in a while I'll wonder what the fuss was about... and possibly contribute, if only to the dummies FAQ section. André Grobler Andre: I had the privilege recently to give a short beginners course in GIS to a small group of undergrads in environmental science. Before the semester started I had decided to give the course based on FOSS tools. I first sat down with the network technician, who told me that they have ArcGIS 9, network licence, but he don't know where the disks were, and was concerned about space on the server, network traffic, bogging down their Terminal Server etc, etc. So I (rubbing my hands together) told him, no problem, we're going with Open Source Software. Turned out some of the students had MACs and one was using Ubuntu, so the choice to go with OSS tools was a no brainer. To my surprise, by the forth lesson we had gotten to watershed analysis, and students were running the GRASS modules (within QGIS). Admittedly we leapfrogged over some stuff, but still I doubt I could have reached that level with Arc* tools in such a short time span. The comfort zone problem is well know and likely the most difficult hurdle to overcome when trying to migrate to OSS tools. But to some extent it's nothing more than a matter of perception. Proprietary software vendors have surrounded us with distorting mirrors. Once you step away, things look quite different. Regards, Micha ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Dan Putler Sauder School of Business University of British Columbia ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
