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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Hi Andreas,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Quoting Andreas Neumann <<A
href="mailto:a.neumann@carto.net">a.neumann@carto.net</A>>:<BR>> Thank you
for pointing us to the existing efforts of Stefan, you and<BR>> others for
Desktop GIS comparisons. I think we (the QGIS community) can<BR>> certainly
help to update the QGIS column in your comparison chart<BR>> (<A
href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Albk_XRkhVkzdGxyYk8tNEZvLUp1UTUzTFN5bjlLX2c&hl=en">http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Albk_XRkhVkzdGxyYk8tNEZvLUp1UTUzTFN5bjlLX2c&hl=en</A>)
- there is quite a bit of functionality/information missing in this chart.
Things that were introduced in QGIS 1.4 and <BR>> QGIS<BR>>
1.5.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Yes, that is the table I was referring to, already
a bit outdated but very useful if the info is updated for all the projects. I cc
this to Cameron Shorter (Cameron, do you know if there have been new
developments on this desktop GIS comparison issue?)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>> The question is how we deal with functionality
that is only available<BR>> through Plugins? Should it be mentioned that the
functionality is<BR>> available through plugin (a footnote?)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I guess this is something that all the
participating projects would have to agree on, I would say that it is perfectly
OK to add functionality to the table that is only available through plugins. In
my view, a comparison table should answer questions such as "We need to do this
and that in our project, can we do it with QGIS or do we need gvSIG?" and in
that sense, all the functionality that is publicly available (and tested with
the current stable version) could be included. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>> One interesting new development with QGIS is
to use existing resources<BR>> also for web services. The start is the QGIS
Mapserver (or QGIS<BR>> server), which can use an existing desktop project
and deploy it as WMS<BR>> for the web. Together with OpenLayers/Ext/GeoExt
one can do quite<BR>> powerful webmapping systems, in a relative short time.
Later,<BR>> additional OGC services may follow, such as WFS server or
others.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Support for WMS, WFS and other OGC services are
definitely interesting features to follow and compare between the
projects!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>> For the record: QGIS did not start as a GRASS
viewer, but as a Postgis<BR>> viewer (by Gary Sherman). I believe GRASS
editing was added much later.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Thanks for pointing this out!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Best regards,
Gertrude<BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>