[Qgis-user] Local Government for QGIS

Fri Jun 12 07:50:07 PDT 2015

Hello all,

Related to topic, I’ve been researching interest in setting up a regional cooperative for local governments around GeoMOOSE (at first) users in my area (upper Midwest, lot’s of GeoMOOSE up here)

If I can get an informal group together and get something started as a common roadmap for development, I think that will go far in reaching a lot of the goals that have been suggested here so far.  Having some sort of organization that is further reaching than our regional area might be a bit more of a stretch in the near term though, but it’s all likely a good thing in the long run.

bobb

> On Jun 12, 2015, at 9:31 AM, James Keener <jim at jimkeener.com> wrote:
> 
>> They feel as thought they are adhering to a standard - of course a
>> standard put forth by a software company.
> 
> A proprietary software company with whom they have no reason to believe
> their data from now will be accessible in 10 years, let along 50.
> 
>> Yes it's free but it's very professional.
> 
> A million times, yes. This is a message that's hard to get across.
> 
>> Well - we seem to have started something - question is where do we go
>> next with this?
> 
> Does the OSGeo group have a local governments sub-group? (I didn't see
> one, I wonder if there would be interest in creating one. If not, I
> still think we should create one, and I would be willing to fund the
> domain, site and forum hosting, mailing lists, &c  at first.) It seems
> to be a tech-focused organization and I wonder if they would they would
> be interested in forming a group dedicated to ... ?
> 
> What should we be dedicated to? (Also, I'm using F/OSS as a catch all, I
> realize we might want to trim it to OSG or something else).
> 
> Main Goal: To increase the usage of F/OSS software by government.
> 
> I say that with the subtext of "legitimizing" the use of F/OSS by
> governments, i.e. show them others who are using it, show them standards
> they can point to and justify themselves by, and show them that being
> beholden to software corps isn't the only way to get support.
> 
> I would suggest the following actions to supporting that goal:
> 
> * Compiling standards that Governments can (be) point to (endorsing the
>  (OGC standards)[http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards]?)
> * Compiling software that Governments can (be) pointed to (QGIS,
>  PostGIS, GDAL, &c)
> * Compiling case-studies done with F/OSS
> * Compiling white papers around using F/OSS
> * Improve the documentation and tutorials of recommended software
> * Work towards creating standards as needs arise
> * Provide a starting point for Governments to network with
>  * Other governments using F/OSS
>  * Vendors of F/OSS-based services (I'd be OK if this was left out,
>    though it could be useful depending on our exact goals)
> 
> Thoughts?
> Jim Keener
> 
> On 06/12/2015 09:11 AM, Randal Hale wrote:
>> In the states it's all ESRI all day.
>> 
>> A few small governments might try to run in a FOSS4G direction but it's
>> rare. In the Southeast they go "what is the next town over doing? we
>> will do the same thing". The models that ESRI provide are tempting for
>> many because suddenly everyone is doing the exact same thing. So with no
>> thought - Gov't A can share with Gov't B. They feel as thought they are
>> adhering to a standard - of course a standard put forth by a software
>> company.
>> 
>> My business is swinging in a more foss4g direction although I still use
>> ESRI software as many of my customers do - but it's getting rare. So
>> rare I opted to not renew my ESRI licensing this year. Many of my
>> clients are versions back so I can sit on 10.2 for a while. I still get
>> "well that free stuff can't be that good" but I'm slowly winning over
>> clients as They are getting very good data with qgis/postgis and the
>> word is spreading. Yes it's free but it's very professional.
>> 
>> Well - we seem to have started something - question is where do we go
>> next with this?
>> 
>> Randy
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 06/12/2015 04:34 AM, Andreas Neumann wrote:
>>> Hi Steve,
>>> 
>>> Thank you for raising this important discussion.
>>> 
>>> In some European countries the situation is a bit different and Open
>>> Source solutions are gaining an increasing market share. I live and
>>> work in Switzerland - and while the majority of the markets still uses
>>> ESRI products - there is an increasing number of provinces who also
>>> increasingly use Postgis, QGIS, OpenLayers, etc - sometimes
>>> exclusively and sometimes side by side with proprietary software.
>>> 
>>> I also think that the next couple of years we will see an increasing
>>> number of governmental organisations introducing OpenSource GIS side
>>> by side with commercial GIS and will gradually shift more and more
>>> applications to FOSSGIS.
>>> 
>>> Some examples in Switzerland:
>>> 
>>> * The national mapping portal runs exclusively on OS software
>>> (Postgis, OpenLayers, and some more) - it runs very well, fast and is
>>> very popular - production of the data is still done exclusively in ESRI
>>> * 2 provinces in Switzerland run exclusively in FOSSGIS, about 7 and 8
>>> additional provinces introduced FOSSGIS side by side with commercial
>>> products
>>> * several cities and water/gaz providers are currently migrating to
>>> FOSSGIS to document utility networks
>>> * The austrian province "Vorarlberg" introduced several hundred
>>> installations of QGIS as the main GIS in their administration
>>> * several Scandinavian countries/provinces/cities are already using
>>> FOSSGIS on both Desktop GIS and web mapping
>>> 
>>> The list would be much longer - but things are moving slowly and
>>> steadily to more FOSSGIS usage in Europe - at least I can tell
>>> 
>>> There are two other interesting points:
>>> 
>>> * in my opinion - it is not so much about money - but about different
>>> values: the ability to more easily influence the direction of the
>>> software, support of open standards, integration with other FOSS
>>> software, etc.
>>> * as an employee of a local government it is so much more interesting
>>> being able to actively contribute to FOSS software rather than just
>>> using software "as is".
>>> 
>>> As you can see above - it is more the "richer" countries that are
>>> moving towards Open Source and fewer "poorer" countries. This
>>> indicates that the factor "cost" is less important than people think.
>>> 
>>> Andreas
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 11.06.2015 22:28, Steve G wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> View this message in context:
>>>> http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Local-Government-for-QGIS-tp5210489.html
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from the Quantum GIS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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