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

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 03:35:16PM -0500, Yves Moisan wrote:
> 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 ?

I think that the costs to doing this would likely be prohibitive, right?
The software requires a license, and I expect ESRI wouldn't want to 
encourage use like this?

(not to mention the idea of SAC being responsible for maintaining an
ArcSDE instance seems costly for no tangible corresponding benefit to
OSGeo.)

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer