I do not think a simple feature comparison is very useful. Seeing workflows that happen to use XYZ software or.. how we transitioned from ABC proprietary software to XYZ open source and improved performance 10% while reducing costs 20% etc.. that's useful and convincing. Knowing that ABC proprietary supports 3 methods of kriging while XYZ open source supports 2 may be earthshattering or completely irrelevant. The real answer is an unexciting "It depends".<br>
<br>You can tweak feature comparisons to make yourself look good, the competition look bad.. etc.. It's just like statistics. I see this in camera reviews all the time, The Pentax K200D has a 96% viewfinder. Comparable models from Nikon and Canon offer 95% viewfinders. Call me cynical, but I find it hard to believe that someone at Pentax didn't say "Let's make our number bigger". Of course, in many reviews of those models, the Pentax scores higher on that feature because 96 > 95 [1]. Does that make it a better camera? Well gee I guess if you only cared about that 1 thing; I don't know anyone that does (or should).<br>
<br>What you don't see in feature comparisons are solid, no-B$ analyses of how they let you do your job better. Usability for example is something that you cannot easily quantify. You can have the best product/software in the world but if I can't get the results due to UI/UX failure, or an unnecessarily steep learning curve, etc; then for me the user - your software is 100% useless (actually it's worse because now I have to find a tool that does work). Handtools are a classic example of this; anyone that works with wood or mechanical parts will understand how some tools just don't "feel" right. Do they feel 20% less right? Doesn't work that way.<br>
<br>Not to say that feature comparisons are completely useless, especially for new people they can be good; but overall they're coarse, imprecise, and not very knowledge-rich IMO. Case studies of transition are much more powerful; speaking both as a user and a decisionmaker. I think moving towards active real-world presentations is far more powerful than lifeless comparisons.<br>
<br>Another example is people that love SSDs (solid state drives) and rave about their Windows boot times. Yeah SSDs are great but.. do you just sit around and reboot your computer all day? A 2000% improvement on something I do once a month is probably not that big of a deal.<br>
<br> - bri<br><br>p.s. I shoot nikon but I really don't care what you shoot and have 0 vested interest; just an example.<br><br>1. <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxK200D/page20.asp">http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxK200D/page20.asp</a><br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Miguel Montesinos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mmontesinos@prodevelop.es">mmontesinos@prodevelop.es</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Hello,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">I think that a simple comparison to what ArcGIS does is
limitating. Several issues arises:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"><span>-<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Why compare to ArcGIS 9.3 and
not Geomedia, MapInfo,…?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"><span>-<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">What about features that OS
GIS desktops provides not present in ArcGIS 9.3?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">I’d rather have a comparison among all of them under equal
conditions, for instance a feature comparison based on the maximum features all
products offer, as well as a perfomance analysis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">For this, a common dataset of both file and service based data
should be available. In Spain there are “a lot” of public official geodata
which could be used as test datasets.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">I also like very much Paul Ramsey’s approach about what I
like and what I don’t made by people belonging to different projects.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">---------------------------------------------</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Miguel Montesinos</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">CTO</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">PRODEVELOP, S.L.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><a href="http://www.prodevelop.es/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;" lang="EN-US">www.prodevelop.es</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Miguel Montesinos</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">De:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">
<a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a>] <b>En
nombre de </b>Daniel Ames<br>
<b>Enviado el:</b> lunes, 21 de diciembre de 2009 19:25<br>
<b>Para:</b> Maxim Dubinin; OSGeo Discussions<br>
<b>Asunto:</b> Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Will there be an OSGeo Desktop shootout
atFOSS4G 2010?</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p>Folks, I like the structured comparison approach that Cameron outlined. Also
equally (or perhaps more useful) would be to put together a wiki page with
goals and benchmarks based on ArcGIS 9.3. And then indicate where the os
packages compare. This would provide us with the ability to answer the most
important question which is "can this do what the proprietary software
does." For example, we could post a couple of maps made in AG and then
challenge each desktop team to create and upload the same maps. Etc. I
have a line shapefile with 200 shapes. We could upload it and have everyone do
some timing to show how fast to load,pan, etc on the data. This could also
serve as a way for some of the teams to see their own deficiencies and find
critical tasks to work on (they could then update their reporting on the wiki
and indicate the version number)... - Dan</p>
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