[Qgis-user] Re: New to QGIS, Best solution?

[Alister Hood]

OK, since you asked ;)

> Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:31:38 +0200
> From: "Derek Hohls" <dhohls at csir.co.za>
> Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] Re: New to QGIS, Best solution?
> To: <hayamaguchi at gmail.com>, <jonathanmoules at warwickshire.gov.uk>
> Cc: qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID: <4F4F965A020000D4000241B8 at pta-emo.csir.co.za>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> I found their conclusion somewhat disappointing.  
>
>
> Arc/GIS was launched in 1999, and Arc/INFO (command line predecessor, equivalent to GRASS) in 1982.  GRASS also launched in 1982 and ILWIS launched in 1984, so how they can say these are "relatively young" does not make sense.

I think the key word there is "generally".  I don't think they mean to say that GRASS and ILWIS are young - if you've read the whole paper you'll have seen them mentioning the "maturity and long existence" of GRASS and ILWIS.

> Also to keep in mind that the code-base that many of these "younger" packages build on is much older than their launch dates...

Really?  Which ones?  How much older?
The truth is, most of them _are_ a lot younger.  Incidentally, this means that papers like this can go out of date very quickly - think how much QGIS has improved since it was written.

> I think the "less overall GIS functionality" is due to the smaller user base and number of contributers, and has nothing to do with age per se.

And to put on Paulo's hat: due to having less $money$ spent on development.  I don't have a clue how much less, but I'd guess several orders of magnitude at least.  Please support QGIS development... ;)

The main problems I have with the conclusion are:
1) I can't see that the paper actually provides a case for the statement that FOS software generally has less functionality than "proprietary high-end GIS".
2) They don't define "high-end".  There are all sorts of references in the rest of the paper e.g. to "Mapinfo", which imply they just mean any mainstream proprietary GIS.  But I suspect that is not what they mean: Mapinfo for example is pretty pathetic without a bunch of additional paid add-ons.  Which combinations of proprietary software and addons are required for "high-end" functionality?

> My 2c!  But I would really like to hear from others on this topic.
>
> >>>  03/01/12 2:09 PM >>>
> The paper can be accessed directly with no subscription here:
> http://www.geo.uzh.ch/~sstein/manuscripts/sstein_freegitools_ecoinf2009.pdf
>
> An interesting read. Highlights from the Conclusion:
>
> "We report that due to the relative youth of  the eight evaluated FOS GIS 
> projects, they generally tend to have less overall GIS functionality than 
> proprietary high-end GIS...  However, on the positive side they all 
> provide the basic GIS functions needed in LSE[Landscape Ecology]; they are 
> easy to  customise; a growing number of specialised functions and plug-ins 
> already exists for specific LSE applications; and there is a growing 
> community of practitioners willing to freely share their ideas, code and 
> expertise."

Alister