[Qgis-user] Local Government for QGIS

[Steve G]

I am not sure this is the correct forum for a start to this discussion, but
I've been pondering this for a while and interested what others think.  I
work for local government in the U.S. and when people generally talk about
GIS there is no doubt an automatic association with the ESRI ArcGIS
platform.  And beyond GIS itself, the dominance that ESRI has is even more
pronounced given the fact that many cities have implemented other related
systems (permitting, computer aided dispatch, etc) that are identified
business partners with ESRI.  Furthermore, the "GIS Local Government" track
that ESRI developed has evolved to offer an "turnkey" approach for local
government self-service to establish a robust geodatabase (Local Government
Information Model), maps, apps, web services, etc.  This extends a COTS
approach for local governments to establish, develop, and maintain a fairly
complete GIS.  In my opinion, pure genius...because for a lot of small
cities/governments with limited staff and budget, the turnkey approach is
very appealing.  For city bureaucrats thinking about implementing/extending
GIS, what they might think as little $$$ and you get all of this? 
Awesome...here's my money. 

HOWEVER, this approach has its drawbacks.  Long-term license/use costs,
vendor lock-in, continuous waiting for someone at the company to fix
something....well, the list goes on (just read any blog post supporting open
source/FOSS).

So, with the evolution of QGIS as a prevailing replacement/alternative for
the other product, is anyone thinking about building more of a turnkey
approach (database, maps, apps, web services, etc) geared to local
governments?  I like the direction of the OpenGeo platform (and others)
trying to provide the whole software stack, but still if a small local
government wants to have a full fledged interactive GIS, it might seem like
a lot of work to develop and maintain.  

I am interested in other thoughts...perhaps this belongs on a blog post
somewhere more independent, but perhaps this can be a place to begin.

Steve G.



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