GRASS is a mixed bag – good in that it is free and far more functional than, in terms of real spatial analysis, than other FOSS offerings… but also it comes with a steep learning curve and still, last time I played with it, did not offer the full range of functionality that is present in the ESRI software line-up. Depending on the types of work that need to be done, however, and the ability for those doing the work to learn to use new software, it may fill a void left if ESRI software were pulled out…
To define the proper GIS software lineup, one needs to define what the task with GIS is going to be… --- Nicholas Floersch (pr. Floor-sh) Stone Environmental, Inc. From: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Balu Raman Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 4:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: VT State Budget Cuts... a time to talk F/OSS? GIS experts : What about GRASS ? No mention of it. thanks, -balu On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Nick Floersch <[email protected]> wrote: Hi! A few replies... --- Nicholas Floersch (pr. Floor-sh) Stone Environmental, Inc. > -----Original Message----- > From: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andrew Tomczak > > There is a huge amount of money being spent on > licensing for the http://www.esri.com/ ArcGis software. We are pretty > much locked into this software, and a lot of budgeting and development > is determined by the development and release cycle of the ArcGiS > Software; [...] However, a huge drawback of the ArcGis software, is the 10 > character limit to the length of the names of the table columns. I assume you mean the limitations of field names in Shape files? I have no problem creating attribute fields with names such as ABC123DEF456GHI789JKL012 in File Geodatabases, Personal Geodatabases, or in our various SDE databases. > We are also completely dependent on the Microsoft SQL Server Databases. (Some > other agencies are dependent on the Oracle.) With ArcSDE v9.3 we finally have support for PostGreSQL and PostGIS as the backend, instead of Oracle or MSSQL. I have personally setup a PostGiS-SDE database and it worked quite nicely. It won't save you money on ESRI licensing, but you could save money on MSSQL licensing. > All of the software mentioned is expensive and argumentatively worth the > money spent. I do not argue that the ArcGIS Desktop software and Server software are the most advanced packaged GIS solutions available. I wish I could say that some open-source package such as MapServer or GeoServer had ESRI lagging behind, but they don't - not in capabilities and features. But the prices are absolutely ludicrous. A state-government license for ArcGIS Server Enterprise Advanced is $22k, plus something like $10k a year in maintenance. Think that's a lot? Well, the commercial license is closer to $40k last I checked. So the state can get half-off... but half-off-of-a-lot is still a lot. A single seat commercial license for ArcINFO Workstation costs us $4k a year. Depending on the level of user, however, there are alternatives... some users only view data, and there are free programs that are great for viewing and browsing data - from ESRI and others. But the prices ESRI charges are still way way too much - especially given the sh*tty quality of their software... I mean yes they have the most features and capabilities of anything out there, but their written/based on .NET and crash and burn all of the time - sometimes when you are in the middle of processing stuff, and sometimes when you step away and are doing nothing... really poor quality. ArcGIS Server and SDE are somewhat better than the desktop stuff, but they are still buggy as hell, and you still pay a premium for the buggy software. I use ESRI stuff every single day - we live and die by it here - but we still find it hard to love. > The one that I am the most concerned with is the Microsoft Office 2007 > push, and its implications. Starting with the assets that MS Office > brings to the table (we do not need Office 2007 for this) is the huge > amount of MS Access databases already in existence that depend on > Access > to be usable. Next is the ability to connect to ODBC databases. But > the most important feature is the ability to export tables in a variety > of formats. The ones I need, in particular, are MS Excel and DB IV > (for > the ArcGis and ArcMap applications). I would prefer to work with Open > Office, and I usually do, accept that Open Office cannot export Excel > and DB IV tables. OO.o can't export to XLS? I never realized that - that's incredible. Given all of the Perl libraries I've seen for creating XLS files, and working with them, I am amazed that nobody has put this functionality into OO.o. > Now for the huge liabilities of the MS Office 2007 migration. It is > outrageously expensive, and the State is in the middle of a huge > purchase of licenses. The sales people as Microsoft are probably > claiming that they are offering a huge discount on this software that > has had been excessively marked up. The Office 2007 software is so hard > to use, it is guaranteed to cost excessive amounts of money across the > board for labor. I would like to say that I find Office 2007 not really all that hard to use. It took me a few days of fumbling through documents, all the while getting work done, but just more slowly, and then I felt like I was working smoothly. People fear change, but I think in this case, the question of the changed interface should not be that which is feared - the budget to make the license conversion/upgrade is much worse. > Vista was such a blunder, and Windows XP 64 bit is only available in > beta, so all workstations are running 32 bit XP OSs on 64 bit hardware. Are you saying that the state bought beta versions of XP 64-bit? That's odd. I run XP x64 as my desktop OS at work every day, with all of the ESRI software and lots of other stuff (Office 2007, Firefox, Dia, iTunes, Nmap .. a wide range of software) and it is a very stable and responsive system - relatively speaking, for Windows. If you can upgrade from those beta licenses it would be worth it... > The software, and development software, are basically a blunder. All > the applications are 32 bit, and we develop software for a 64 bit > servers on a 32 bit software running on 64 workstations. Now to add to > the mix, is Microsoft's persistence in using a new version of files > that are proprietary "latest version" for it's default save feature. The > State has bought into converting all documents to MS Office 2007 > proprietary XML, hook line and sinker. This will cost even more > excessive labor and cause huge incompatibility problems. Yeah - that's a silly decision. Until everyone is using Office 2007, you should be sticking with the old file format. > Microsoft servers software is expensive, > exceptionally unreliable, and constantly needs to be rebooted, but our > network staff would never admit to that. I've found Server 2003 and Server 2008 to be very stable operating systems. I've also found SQL Server 2003, 2005, and 2008 to be very stable and not require much attention once setup. I will concede that it is annoying to have to reboot the OS to apply a patch or update... but maybe the instability in your server systems is tied also to hardware or running environment? I've heard some horror stories about the server rooms at the state. I'm not saying I love the MS server environment - but I will admit that it has been stable for us and our 20-some-odd servers of varying types. > The constant expense of > licenses causes excessive travel. Using Linux and Java would allow > people to do work from home, just as easily as from the office. Well - I've heard that the state does not embrace the concept of a VPN. As such, yeah, people travel way too much. If the state would open up a VPN for office workers to use Remote Desktop to their XP or Vista machines, people could easily work from home... like they do at our office. > And Finally, it seems that there is no way > that I can influence these Microsoft Software purchase decisions > without risking my job. Yes - at this point, nobody wants to stick their head up for fear of it getting plucked off. And pushing for a non-Microsoft strategy would seem like a very dangerous path, even if it was a good path to take. Pity. Good luck! This communication, including any attachments, is solely for the confidential use of the person(s) named above. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete/destroy the original. 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