[Qgis-user] "Normal" mdb support possible for "normal" people?

[Bernd Vogelgesang]

Hi there,
 from a talk at the German User Meeting today in Kassel (thanx to Claas for  
the organization), i got the impression that ONE important thing in qgis  
is still missing:
Direct support for normal access databases!

Personal geodatabases work like a charm now (many thanx for this!), but i  
was told, that a lot of people who would be the perfect target group for  
qgis, still work on a completely gis-free level, dealing with their data  
in normal access databases or even worse formats.

To catch those people and show them the light, it seems to me to be  
crucial, that qgis would be able to add/join/edit normal tables from  
normal access database as well without having to do such odbc-magic apprx.  
99% of the world population have never heard of.

Here  
http://osgeo-org.1560.n6.nabble.com/direct-mdb-read-in-QGis-td4637313.html  
i found a "solution" for geeks, but how about those people like me or john  
doe, who have no idea about how to compile gdal with other stuff but are  
merely able to do some gis work?

I couldn'd find a feature request on the hub on this matter, so i wonder  
if this would be a good feature request, or whether there are technical,  
legal or "political" constraints preventing such a support so far.

As far as i understand ESRI personal geodatabases are just some pimped  
access databases, so the impossibility to just load such in qgis is a  
mystery to me.

Can anybody shed some light on this issue?


-- 
Bernd Vogelgesang * Siedlerstrasse 2 * 91083 Baiersdorf * +49-9133-825374