[postgis-users] Who is Using PostGIS?

[Alexander Pucher]

Hi Paul,

Paul Ramsey wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> It is that time of year again (conference time) so I am going to ask 
> my annual question(s):
>
>    Who are you?

Alexander Pucher, representing the Institute of Geography and Regional 
Research - Cartography and Geoinformation - at the University of Vienna, 
Austria

>    What are you using PostGIS for?

Storing most of our geodata for a mixed cartography/GIS mapping 
environment. We run several applications, backed up by PostGIS. These 
includes a multinational atlas, cooperations with historians, geologists 
as well as the educational field (e.g. http://www.gis.univie.ac.at/mymap/)

>    Why did you choose PostGIS?

Started with MySQL some years ago (first few applications were a mix of 
geodata/shapefile-thematic data/MySQL). Soon, the demand for storage of 
"real" geographic data was discovered. Along with this, we already 
planned the migration from MySQL to PostgreSQL for several other reasons 
than the geodata thing.

>
>    What makes you happy about your PostGIS installation?

Performance!
Close integration with UMN MapServer and PHP/MapScript.
What makes me really happy are the faces of people involved in the 
GIS/mapping field when you show them a running system built up of pure 
Open-Source components!!

>    What makes you unhappy about your PostGIS installation?

(Still) the general opinion towards open-Source software makes me 
unhappy. At first sight, above mentioned folks are amazed by PostGIS, 
when you tell them it's free, the old prejudices come up again. So, a 
broader publicity and acceptance of PostGIS ("No, it's not Oracle 
Spatial-Yes, it really works-No, it's not badly tested-Yes, it is 
maintained.....) would be very helpful. Of course, this goes out to the 
whole community!


Regards,
alex.
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