[OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo

[Bob Basques]

Eric, 

Now you're talk'in.  Sure took this thread long enough to get here.  :c) 

The Stick method allows for exactly what Eric describes, ease of use.  The same sorts of things I'm running into for Emergency Preparedness materials, I'm currently putting together as a prototype.  I've been pondering on getting a one-click setup for the data acquisition side of things, where the data service keeps itself in sync with some master (or set of master) database(s) online if there is a network available, otherwise it runs by itself with whatever it has.  Like in a class room setting. 

I'm running everything off the "Stick" too, Apache, Database(s), Firefox (as in I get to pick which Browser is used, big deal in some development circles).  Where does this potentially go? 

One could address just about any sort of business need with this approach and set up a preconfigured system for desktop clients and or web clients.  Even running an impromptu webservice in the field from a USB stick during an emergency. 

The tricky part about the ease of use, is getting the data into/out of the mix.  There is always some sort of knowledge level required about a dataset that is generally needed to get it into a distributed system, is this where OSGEO comes in?.  Cascading services, and setting up EASY (as in automatic) syncing systems is the trick here, not putting the use tools together, most of us know how to do that already.  It's the data and making it easy to get at and consequently publish by the average (data) user. 

A user should be able to say, here is my data (in whatever form) and the software figures out what to do with it, how it's supposed to be indexed (it at all) and how it's supposed to be shared, as a desktop application dataset and/or as a published web accessible data source, all automatically. 

I have more ideas upon request . . .  :c) 

bobb 




>>> Eric Wolf <ebwolf at gmail.com> wrote:

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Maybe we should focus on a GIS on a stick product rather than a LiveDVD? 



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