[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Will there be an OSGeo Desktop shootout atFOSS4G 2010?

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Daniel Ames wrote:
>> I teach ArcGIS 9.3 every semester, so I'll happily provide that
>> perspective (as well as the MapWindow desktop perspective).
>> By the way Tyler gave an awesome OSGeo talk at AGU in San Francisco
>> last week and handled the "how does this stack up to ESRI" question
>> brilliantly. I believe the answer was, "We see ESRI as a major
>> success story for OSGeo since they've adopted GDAL and OGR." Couldn't
>> have been addressed more perfectly. 
>
> Folks,
>
> To be clear, I am unaware of any adoption of OGR by ESRI. They do make
> extensive use of GDAL for raster translation and raster data access.
Minor note - usually when I give this answer I say GDAL/OGR as a blanket
project name, but I can see how that can be confusing when spoken
verbally :)
>
> While this is a good point to mention, and helps point out that things
> aren't as simple as "us and them", since even them is often one of us
> in some respects, I'd like us to be able to give a deeper answer.
>
> Many workloads that are currently done with ArcGIS could also be done
> with FOSS tools (most web mapping, much desktop work, and some deep
> analysis).  I'd like to get white papers, and presentations addressing
> some of these easily transferrable workloads.
I'd also like this workflow assessment angle from the perspective of
"how I got this project done using FOSS tools" - with a backdrop of what
they'd have to do otherwise (e.g. using a proprietary package).

Tyler