[Qgis-user] Local Government for QGIS

[Bernhard Ströbl]

Hi Joseph,

could you elaborate why "it would be unrealistic to say we
could ever be a 100% QGIS"? I am curious because I lost contact with 
ESRI products a couple years ago.

Bernhard

Am 12.06.2015 um 19:23 schrieb Joseph Sloop:
> To All,
> I am glad to see the discussion and interest in QGIS in local government. I
> have been interested in QGIS in local government for sometime now. I work
> for MapForsyth| City-County Geographic Information Office in Forsyth
> County, North Carolina (USA). We have and use both QGIS and ESRI products
> (more of ESRI than QGIS). In our case it would be unrealistic to say we
> could ever be a 100% QGIS (FOSS) shop at this point, but it is our goal to
> have QGIS integrated with more of our departments and through time we will
> be able to increase the use of QGIS.
>
> I know from my experience, case studies and showing return on investment
> (ROI) are  very important to have and show decision makers. However, let us
> not for get our IT departments, especially in local government. In our case
> we partnered with them so they could see, understand, and ask questions
> regarding QGIS or any open source software we use. I have found that they
> are becoming some of our best supporters.
>
> Some of my other thoughts are support and governance of QGIS
> installations...best practices etc.
>
> Just my two cents, but glad to see the discussion.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Joseph Sloop
>
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Randal Hale <
> rjhale at northrivergeographic.com> 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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --


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