[GRASSLIST:9016] Re: ArcView vs GRASS

[David Finlayson]

Don't blame the tool ...

ESRI has done for GIS what Microsoft did to productivity software. One
affect of this is that expert users (and use cases) were sacrificed to
get the tool out to the masses. ESRI is dominate because their product
was a better fit for the vast majority of users and they were the
first to market a product designed to solve  enterprise problems. This
lead to a return on their investment and in the end, industry
dominance. Not unlike Microsoft.

GRASS will continue to be viable in the same way Linux is...by filling
the niches that ESRI cannot or will not. A few strengths of GRASS over
ESRI right now are its flexibility and amenability to
research/academic experimentation.

David

On 11/11/05, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it> wrote:
> Hi all.
> During a national conference on Open Source software
> (http://www.salpa.pisa.it/), one of the speakers (ESRI businnes partner,
> curiously enough) has showed a comparison, which I found misleading, between
> ArcView and GRASS. Does anybody have hard data, reference material, or
> experience to share on this?
> Many thanks.
> pc
> --
> Paolo Cavallini
> email+jabber: cavallini at faunalia.it
> www.faunalia.it
> Piazza Garibaldi 5 - 56025 Pontedera (PI), Italy   Tel: (+39)348-3801953
>
>


--
David Finlayson
Marine Geology & Geophysics
School of Oceanography
Box 357940
University of Washington
Seattle, WA  98195-7940
USA

Office: Marine Sciences Building, Room 112
Phone: (206) 616-9407
Web: http://students.washington.edu/dfinlays