[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo maintained ArcSDE (EDN ?) instance

[Yves Moisan]

Hi All,

I know the subject line doesn't exactly sound like an appropriate topic
to discuss on the OSGeo list, but I'd like to make a suggestion to see
if there is any traction to it or not.  I -- and I'm sure quite a few
FOSS4G users on this list -- sometimes have to deploy FOSS4G solutions
on corporate/government organization setups that are geared with ArcSDE,
for better or for worse.  

Lately, I've been fighting with MS4W to get it to connect to an ArcSDE
server that we set up on our intranet (9.3.1 with postgresql, no postgis
is the way it was installed).  The intranet SDE was set up as a test
server, because we can't access the customer's SDE.  So why would I want
a public facing OSGeo managed SDE instance if I can set my own ?  First,
looking at the error logs I'm not sure the installation went well.  I'd
like to debug being sure that the SDE server is functional. Plus, if I
want an independent contractor to work on my problem, I can't offer a
test instance because it's on our intranet.

I realize most of the people that have customers using ArcSDE will test
on the customer's ArcSDE service so there might not be a need for a test
instance generally speaking.  Am I the only one with that (temporary)
need of testing a FOSS4G setup on an ArcSDE server ?  Would it make
sense to have test data (e.g. like in MS4W) set up on a shared test
ArcSDE ?

Cheers,

Yves