[OSGeo Africa] Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 15
Gerhard Brits
BritsJG at eskom.co.za
Wed Jun 5 08:25:58 PDT 2013
Peter
That all good for land surveyor. Only land surveyors really do land survey( more or less). But GIS on the other hand can be done by IT/IM Professionals, Geographers, Environmental people, conservation, geologist, software developers. The list goes on not just GIS solely trained people. This is the problem with plato it looks at the industry through a very small pipe.
Plato does not do the marketing I agree, but it cause that the industry does not develop.
Regards
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Subject: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 15
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 12 (Peter Newmarch)
2. Re: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 14 (Gerhard Brits)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:15:06 +0200
From: Peter Newmarch <newmarch at land-surveyors.com>
To: Africa local chapter discussions <africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 12
Message-ID: <51AF47EA.5080108 at land-surveyors.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Gerhard
Its about marketing. you cannot stop people from using / buying or selling GIS - well not until there is work reservation in some way, which I don't see ever happening at a GIS user level.
Certainly the people who write software don't have to be registered either - in the same way that the manufacturer of an x-ray machine is probably not a doctor. What can be stopped is where the state requires services of some sort - at that point it should be registered people only need apply.
For me, I am a land surveyor come GIS user - I also happen to be the president of SAGI and we have very effectively started putting a stop to using unregistered people in the surveying business - its a very long slog and difficult, but it needed to be done - still ongoing. To give you an example, we have a very effective letter on our website in which we inform engineers about the risks of using unregistered people. Many clients have now sent us there databases and asked us to clean out the unregistered people for them !! - lovely stuff and shows how effective marketing and unity as a profession can be. Of course their is always the difficult department or private company, but we have ways and means of dealing with them as well and eventually they see it our way.
So it can be done in GIS, one just needs better consensus and a strong will to fix it up. Plato wont do your marketing for you.
I have not been involved in the GIS academic model for registration - so I cannot comment on that, my understanding though is that its been drawn up by GIS people themselves and not outsiders.
Regards
Peter
> Peter
>
> What do we do while we wait for the new bill? In the end I wonder how a bill or a registration can stop any person from going online downloading software data set-up shop in a day and sell a product tomorrow to however has money.
>
> I agree the way the registration is done is wrong and maybe we should look to the software vendors model. ESRI has a certification test on their software and that test certifies that you are competent to either administrate a database, develop software or operate the desktop software. FME from Safe software has the same certification that relies on you presenting a portfolio of work done, Microsoft has the same type of thing.
>
> My point is the registration should be open ended so that the GIS industry can grow and multiple disciplines can converge. Is the multi-disciplinary requirement of GIS not the one things that makes GIS so unique, useful and problematic. People that truly master the science are dynamic, multi-skilled people? Plato in my mind keeps people out of the industry.
>
> Regards
>
> Gerhard Brits
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
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> africa-request at lists.osgeo.org
> Sent: 05 June 2013 03:22 PM
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> Subject: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 12
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues (Peter Newmarch)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:21:43 +0200
> From: Peter Newmarch <newmarch at land-surveyors.com>
> To: africa at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
> Message-ID: <51AF3B67.5080901 at land-surveyors.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
>
> On the issue of PLATO, let me just say this. PLATO or the new council
> to be formed when the geomatics bill is passed (lets also call that
> for arguments sake PLATO) is there to provide a platform for
> registration in which people are held to account but also have the
> required knowledge / competency. Now I don't want to go into the
> competency / knowledge debate. But as a legal structure binding on the
> state, the state has a duty to employ registered people. Just as it
> does doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountants etc.... so any new
> vacancy in the state must be filled by way of a Plato registered
> person. It does not mean that a private company must employ a PLATO
> person, on the contrary they can employ whoever they so wish. There
> are however very strong arguments why even private companies should
> use registered people. The state can only give work to registered
> people. If nobody in the company is registered with Plato - it could
> be very difficult doing business with government in the
fu
> ture.
>
> If and when work reservation where to be established for GIS - then such functions would be binding on everybody in SA.
>
> on the question of knowledge / competency - every domain has the same problems, the solution I think it that the approach to articles must change. At the moment this tick box approach of doing X days this and Y days that does not work. A new approach should be outcomes based, and based on a foundation of tasks that lead to various outcomes such as problem solving, risk analysis etc.. etc... - it will take students longer to complete, but I don't see any other way around the poor standards of knowledge and application and the ability to think and problem solve.
>
> Peter
>
> On 2013/06/05 02:30 PM, Gerhard Brits wrote:
>> 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
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
>> [mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of
>> africa-request at lists.osgeo.org
>> Sent: 05 June 2013 01:20 PM
>> To: africa at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 9
>>
>> Send Africa mailing list submissions to
>> africa at lists.osgeo.org
>>
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>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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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. 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 :)
>>
>> 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 projects 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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>> Africa mailing list
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>> End of Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 9
>> *************************************
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>> http://www.49Million.co.za
>>
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------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 14:35:41 +0000
From: Gerhard Brits <BritsJG at eskom.co.za>
To: "africa at lists.osgeo.org" <africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 14
Message-ID:
<A0ED7999345DF84888B83A99C6EA49B076055FDD at MWPXMB11.elec.eskom.co.za>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
@ Walter Smit
Yes that is the idea of PLATO. But I have not seen the fruit from the way PLATO operates. PLATO currently only looks trough n small pipe at the broader industry. That is what may statement is about. The pipe should be a tunnel. Without people no industry grows and the more barriers we make the less and less progress is made and we get no cooperation.
And how does n test on Law and the judgement of someone's degree ensure that they are competent, efficient, skilled individual? Everybody can read and memorize a book.
@ Ray Schaller
I agree with your statement. Government is a world of empires and the next thing to propel someone to the top. Is there GIS resources to manage these systems. Well the answer is yes, but does government institutions allow these people to develop....NO. And to administrate a system do you need a GIS person?? Or just someone that is open minded and willing to explore and experiment.
The great thing that is called and Enterprise system. Yes very few institutions know what they buy with an enterprise system. But this is where we require dynamic multi skilled people that can fill these gaps. The common issue is access to information. And this is something that the the proprietary people kind off mind easy in the last few years. And something FOSS still needs to get.
Maybe what we need is more of our IT/IM decision makers to be part of this forum.
This is where FOSS private community should market themselves with the right approach.
For something different can anybody please tell me where can I get training to do some programming/script writing in python. I am looking for a general course not GIS specific. Been experimenting with python on multiple platforms, got it working now but I want to extend me use. Any suggestions??
Regards
Gerhard Brits
-----Original Message-----
From: africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of africa-request at lists.osgeo.org
Sent: 05 June 2013 03:53 PM
To: africa at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 14
Send Africa mailing list submissions to
africa at lists.osgeo.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
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You can reach the person managing the list at
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Africa digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues (Ray Schaller)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:52:26 +0200
From: "Ray Schaller" <rschaller at nwpg.gov.za>
To: "'Africa local chapter discussions'" <africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Message-ID: <51AF5EBA020000E90015124F at cs1cluster.NWPG.GOV.ZA>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
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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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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