[gdal-dev] ESRI file geodatabase support

[Christopher Barker]

Matt Wilkie wrote:
> "While ESRI would ideally like to open the file geodatabase format in a 
> manner similar to what we did for shapefiles when we released ArcView 2, 
> geodatabases are complex and can be easily corrupted outside the ArcGIS 
> environment."

Well, that to me says that either ESRI is mis-informing us, or it's a 
lousy format! I'm guessing the latter.

(to be a bit more fair, I suppose what that handling it this way gives 
them more freedom to adjust the format in the future-- i.e. chance the 
format, but not the API, so user code doesn't have to change)

In any case, though, it's a real shame that ESRI is driving this, 
because what the world really needs is an open, well specified format.

We can only hope that major ESRI customers will request that from ESRI, 
but I'm not holding my breath.

-Chris


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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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