[OSGeo Africa] FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Ray Schaller
rschaller at nwpg.gov.za
Wed Jun 5 06:52:26 PDT 2013
Hi
A point I didn't get across in my earlier post is that 9 times out 10
government institutions don't have the capacity to "manage" IS systems
including GIS. It's fine using GIS to answer a set of questions but at
the end of the day the answers that were found through analysis are not
being fed back into the system for decision-making. This is where GIS
falls short as the decision-makers within government do not have the
answers to certain questions as these answers lie with the specialist
that undertook the original analysis. If HODs and MECs were able to
readily call up a map to see for example "How many rhino were poached
over the last year and where these rhino were poached" or "where a
provinces sensitive areas were and how these would affect a potential
development" they would start seeing the benefit of a GIS and it would
be easier to get budgets approved for a total GIS solution. We need
experienced GIS professionals within government to take GIS forward. If
GIS is to be taken seriously it cannot be left to a university leaver
with very little experience to motivate for the total solution. From my
experience they are not taken seriously, especially when you step on the
toes of a IT manager who comes from a "Communications" background. If
these government institutions had to employ a GIS professional to manage
a GIS implementation, is there a sufficient resource base to full these
positions. We know this is not the case and this has to be addressed.
Government departments are sold Enterprise GIS solutions without
properly understanding that for these to run effectively and efficiently
they need to be resourced with skilled staff and the necessary IT
infrastructure (including adequate bandwidth). Often this does not
happen and these total solutions never get off the ground. Management
end up thinking that the money spent on the total GIS solution as being
a total waste of funds.
Cheers
Ray
>>> "Walter Smit" <walter.s at sa-solutions.co.za> 05/06/2013 03:02 PM
>>>
You answered your own question:
The role of PLATO. "...in the FOSS environment it to have some
certification
for service providers".
PLATO registration attempts to ensure/prove to clients that the
professionals they appoint/employ will have a broad skill set and give
a
certain level of service/expertise. If not, they can complain to Plato
who
can then take steps against the professional.
Would be great if most registered professionals came from the FOSS
community.
Cheers
W
-----Original Message-----
From: africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org]
On Behalf Of Gerhard Brits
Sent: 05 June 2013 02:31 PM
To: africa at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: [OSGeo Africa] FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Hi All
I have been following this discussion trough out the morning.
What does it matter if you have a degree or a semester course in GIS.
We
have engineers that operate GIS applications. It is how you use GIS and
the
environment that you implement it that determines what educational
background you need. In my short career in GIS have seen very few
people
that are competent that have some GIS degree or remote sensing
background
and register with PLATO, but they have no clue what it means to convert
file
types or to write a simple SQL query. So I do not understand even the
role
of PLATO. Does n programmer need to be registered with PLATO? Maybe it
is
just me being bias.
Government is a special place and very few GIS practitioners have the
ability to influence how the IM/IT landscape is planned. The problem
that we
have in this world. The people that need to use systems do not have
the
ability to find solutions to problems themselves. So most government
departments have put in large amount of money into developing staff to
use a
software. To change to open source platform causes a large amount of
money
to be spent to retrain people.
I think something we need to employ in the FOSS environment it to have
some
certification for service providers. So that government/business know
that
who they employee will deliver a professional and reliable service.
Secondly
IT/IM decision makers should be educated in what is available in the
open
source stack and how it can be used and the ease of use. GIS users
should
not be retrained but just moved to new platforms.
The way that the open source community is approaching business and
government is wrong I believe. Do not force something and do not sell
yourself on the basis that the software is free or very cheap. Sell
yourself
by showing how good it is, how scalable, and how simple it is to use.
What
type of support is available and how that support will be given to the
client.
Regards
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Sent: 05 June 2013 01:20 PM
To: africa at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 9
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Today's Topics:
1. FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues (Walter Smit)
2. Re: FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues (Llewellyn Gush)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 12:19:27 +0200
From: "Walter Smit" <walter.s at sa-solutions.co.za>
To: "Africa local chapter discussions" <africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [OSGeo Africa] FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Message-ID: <004e01ce61d6$2bce9ea0$836bdbe0$@sa-solutions.co.za>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hi Ray
I have been physically deployed in a national government department
(DRDLR)
for the past 18months and many of your points are very true. I could
write a
whole essay about it, but here are some quick points.
* Training and inexperienced staff ? I have had to teach
graduated
GIS people (from various universities) what the difference is between
files
and folders. Seems to me that many universities are missing the plot
completely on how to make young people ready for actual work.
* ?not programmers? ? true, but the FOSS software I have used
does
not require any more programming than over-the-counter suites.
* Enough PGPs? Correct, there are very few. It is however a
fallacy
that you need to be mentored by a PGP to be able to register with Plato
(I
was not ? and I didn?t get the benefit of the Grandfather clause
either). I
don?t know who started this lie, but it seems to stop people from even
trying to register.
* I cannot comment on unscrupulous service providers ?
solutions
should be scalable.
* Freestate in the limelight ? I actually asked someone with
more
knowledge than the reporters. He was of the opinion that the service
provider under quoted, because the range and scope of related services
to
that website was enormous. Like following several officials around to
all
their meetings for a year.
* Why pay more than once? Petty politics and leaders protecting
their
own little empires. And corruption of course. We have tried doing this
for
18months?no luck yet. Also the communication between provinces and
levels of
government is ludicrously poor. Do you know what your direct neighbours
in
Environmental Affairs are using? Hopefully Enrico and Nacelle will be
uploading their Bioregional Plans to the sharing platform when they
are
done. The same platform where you can see the EIAs from
NEIMS?*shameless
plug*
* Data with known custodians. Have been doing this for
12months?it is
very very difficult. Reas
ons: lack of high level regard for (spatial)
data,
capacity and attitudes of ?it isn?t in my job description?. Hopefully
more
OSD posts will change this. Remember that very few departments have
ever
taken responsibility for spatial data ? ever. It is a massively
foreign
concept to them. We are making good progress on this in 2 provinces. In
the
Northern Cape we have actually got all the HODs to sign MOUs that they
will
be custodians for their datasets. Appointing the actual person/post to
an
actual dataset is more of a challenge.
* GIS people in government. Lack of funding usually, or no GIS
posts
on their organograms. Government salaries for GIS people are actually
much
higher than private sector.
* IT support in government. Cannot comment on something that
doesn?t
exist :)
Personally I believe that departments would be better served by
implementing
FOSS and spending the saved money on training. Because training
(regardless
of software used) is what people really need. But then
again?Tswane?why
change a system if it is already working for them? And their staff
have
probably already had some decent training.
Rant over,
Regards
Walter Smit
Professional GISc Practitioner SA (PGP 1193)
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:19:35 +0200
From: Llewellyn Gush <llewellyn at jgdm.gov.za>
To: Africa local chapter discussions <africa at lists.osgeo.org>, Walter
Smit <walter.s at sa-solutions.co.za>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Message-ID: <51AF1EC7.9080809 at jgdm.gov.za>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hello Walt
Just read your RANT on OsGeo
Seems you may be changing your allegiance - to ESRI and all that ;-)
On a serious note the debate around the use of OSS has been doing the
rounds
in Gov now for longer than I care to remember. Nothing yet seems to
have
come of it, the reasons may be many and the will seems to be non
existent,
but one of the major stumbling blocks has been identified by yourself
and
the previous writer. This is not just about GIS though that is the
primary
focus of this forum. The whole debate is much broader and I think needs
to
have the profile raised.
It is really sad when a person considers themselves "computer
literate"
when they can use Word & Excel and then not even do Styles or formula's
more
complex than simple addition - they use them as a glorified typewriter.
It
is a fact that our educational institutions are doing a very poor job
of
skilling students to really be computer literate. This has come about
mostly
due to the penetration and exclusive use of a proprietary vendors
solution,
which was given to educational institutions for free (Catch them young
and
they are yours forever principle). I fail to understand why it is
accepted
that a single vendors solutions should be considered as the only
contribution to a school/university curriculum. The education
authorities
carry equal blame in this regard
Your "low blow" about IT support in Gov :-(
I like to think that at the institution where I am employed there is a
least
a semblance of support. Suppose there has to be since OSS has been
almost
exclusively implemented in the server space, and what do you know "it
works"
and works well.
Free State...??? Maybe the reporter did not know the scope of the work,
but
neither did the department that wanted the solution. How many man hours
can
you buy for 40 Million? A hellava Lot!! Way more than the scope of work
done
so far.
And finally ...........DATA......... I would almost term this the Holy
Grail
of computing. Proprietary vendors, service providers etc are doing a
really
really good job of capturing data and then making it unavailable to
the
client. I have seen more than my fair share of proje
cts that at the end
the
service provider walks away with the IP in the form of the data. I know
that
this is almost always the fault of the project managers, but am afraid
that
it all links back to the above re training and skills and knowledge
about
how to manage the data component.
YOU ARE SO RIGHT
Llewellyn
On 05/06/2013 12:19, Walter Smit wrote:
>
> Hi Ray
>
> I have been physically deployed in a national government department
> (DRDLR) for the past 18months and many of your points are very true.
I
> could write a whole essay about it, but here are some quick points.
>
> ? Training and inexperienced staff ? I have had to teach
> graduated GIS people (from various universities) what the difference
> is between files and folders. Seems to me that many universities are
> missing the plot completely on how to make young people ready for
> actual work.
>
> ? ?not programmers? ? true, but the FOSS software I have used
> does not require any more programming than over-the-counter suites.
>
> ? Enough PGPs? Correct, there are very few. It is however a
> fallacy that you need to be mentored by a PGP to be able to register
> with Plato (I was not ? and I didn?t get the benefit of the
> Grandfather clause either). I don?t know who started this lie, but it
> seems to stop people from even trying to register.
>
> ? I cannot comment on unscrupulous service providers ?
> solutions should be scalable.
>
> ? Freestate in the limelight ? I actually asked someone with
> more knowledge than the reporters. He was of the opinion that the
> service provider under quoted, because the range and scope of related
> services to that website was enormous. Like following several
> officials around to all their meetings for a year.
>
> ? Why pay more than once? Petty politics and leaders
protecting
> their own little empires. And corruption of course. We have tried
> doing this for 18months?no luck yet. Also the communication between
> provinces and levels of government is ludicrously poor. Do you know
> what your direct neighbours in Environmental Affairs are using?
> Hopefully Enrico and Nacelle will be uploading their Bioregional
Plans
> to the sharing platform when they are done. The same platform where
> you can see the EIAs from NEIMS?*shameless plug*
>
> ? Data with known custodians. Have been doing this for
> 12months?it is very very difficult. Reasons: lack of high level
regard
> for (spatial) data, capacity and attitudes of ?it isn?t in my job
> description?. Hopefully more OSD posts will change this. Remember
that
> very few departments have ever taken responsibility for spatial data
?
> ever. It is a massively foreign concept to them. We are making good
> progress on this in 2 provinces. In the Northern Cape we have
actually
> got all the HODs to sign MOUs that they will be custodians for their
> datasets. Appointing the actual person/post to an actual dataset is
> more of a challenge.
>
> ? GIS people in government. Lack of funding usually, or no
GIS
> posts on their organograms. Government salaries for GIS people are
> actually much higher than private sector.
>
> ? IT support in government. Cannot comment on something that
> doesn?t exist J
>
> Personally I believe that departments would be better served by
> implementing FOSS and spending the saved money on training. Because
> training (regardless of software used) is what people really need.
But
> then again?Tswane?why change a system if it is already working for
> them? And their staff have probably already had some decent
training.
>
> Rant over,
>
> _______________________________________________
> Africa mailing list
> Africa at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
--
Llewellyn Gush
Information Technology Manager
Joe Gqabi District Municipality
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