[OSGeo-Discuss] New to the list & A question

[Andy Kannberg]

Hello people,

I am new to the list, and I have subscribed for the following reason:
I am a linux/unix consultant, currently deployed at a government. At
this government they use a GIS system, based on Mapserver. Additional
software is also used, like GDAL, GEOS, ECW, ArcSDE SDK, Xerces-c,
Oracle Instant client, GD, Proj, Fcgi and Postgis.
All is running on a RHEL4 system. The idea is to run this all on
Ubuntu 8.04. I've found all packages to be available on Ubuntu, except
for ArgSDE SDK (Now a part of ArcGIS Server) and ECW, which is from
Erdas. ArcGIS server is propietary, and is only supported on RedHat or
Suse.
ECW is a SDK from Erdas (www.ermapper.com), and, apparantly they've
changed their EULA and it says, it is now allowed to use the ECW SDK
within Mapserver. (This is second hand info, so please don't shoot me
if it is not correct.)

So, my actual question is, is there an alternative to ArcGIS and ECW ?
Would appreciate it if someone can shed a light on this, as GIS
systems are new to me.

cheers,

Andy Kannberg