Re: [gdal-dev] ESRI file geodatabase support

[Ivan Lucena]

Matt,

>  > ...but by the other hand, to develop and maintain the API would also
>  > be costly. So why should they do that? To give to the world a new
>  > free format so that people could use it without an ArcGIS license?
>  
>  The should do it because their customers need it to conduct their work
>  as smooth and efficient manner as possible. It's about being free to use
>  the best tool for the job at hand.

I am not a GIS user, rather a developer but I once had to make a cartographic composition and since I have access to a ArcGIS site license, I used ArcMAP. Later I copied all the data (2 or 3 Shapefiles and 2 or 3 Geotiffs) to a laptop to continue the work, out of the site, using QGIS. Does it exemplify the customers need we are talking about? 

Once the FGBD library is available, FOSS and commercial software developers are going to use it to add support for "ERSI File Geodatbase" on their products. Then, the customers are going to be able to freely create and access FGBD from those software too. They could, for example, run analysis in other software without importing/exporting data formats. Direct access! And that is good for the user for sure.

>  It is true that many, myself included, would take the public spec and
>  use it avoid buying more licenses. However I, or rather my employer,
>  also own and maintain dozens of ESRI licenses, as well as Global Mapper,
>  ERMapper, PCI, Manifold, and others, and have done so for many years. We
>  desire and expect these and other applications to interact with each
>  other with a minimum of hassle. I and my colleagues should be spending
>  our time analysing and making maps and not packaging and re-packaging
>  and re-packaging the same bits from format to format for task X that Y
>  program does better than Z.

I completely agree with you. That is why I suggest that we use the existent ArcObjects/ArcSDE API to access the data right there where it is, on a machine that already has ArcGIS license or from a real RDBMS or web service. No copy-and-paste, no format conversion, Direct access! 

>  I'd also like to point out that not having a straight route for data
>  exchange makes it just as difficult get information *into* the ESRI
>  toolchain as it does to get it back out again. I *like* Arcmap. For
>  cartography there is no other product that comes even close. When it
>  comes to large volumes or repetitve cycles of data conversion though,
>  it's gdal/ogr all the way.

In that case I see GDAL/OGR as a facilitator of Direct access, as long as the developer use it as so, like ESRI is using GDAL for raster support for example. 

Data conversion is the problem to eliminate here. Right?

>  ...hmmm, I seem to have ended up in rants-ville without meaning to go
>  there. And the ears that really need to hear this probably aren't in the
>  room anyhow. Better stop now and get to analysing some data instead of
>  carrying on. :)
>  

It was very interesting to know your point of view.

Best regards,

Ivan