[Qgis-user] Local Government for QGIS

Fri Jun 19 04:30:09 PDT 2015

Hi all,

I think this is a useful discussion as QGIS is (at least IMHO) the most 
popular OpenSource GIS in the public sector. From the discussion I 
understand there are two reasons to not use QGIS as the sole GIS in this 
context:
One are missing features (e.g. missing dwg support). As the discussion 
shows this can easily be overcome by extending QGIS. Someone needs to 
coordinate and pay, of course, but if there are enough users in need of 
this particular feature it will be done. The second reason seems less 
easy to tackle: A local government has many different tasks related to 
spatial information: parks, sewage, streets, water bodies, playgrounds, 
cadastral information etc.. Most administrations lack the knowledge to 
just take QGIS and model the needed data themselves, instead they are 
willing to pay some money to a company that does it for them (and I 
assume this is what ESRI offers with "ArcGIS for Local Government"). But 
most of these companies are tied to a proprietary GIS software. Maybe it 
is also the other way round: the adminstration already has a proprietary 
GIS and looks for someone to implement their needs with it because it is 
(understandibly) unwilling to introduce another GIS for this particular 
task.
IMHO the situation is as it is because for the overwhelming majority of 
local government tasks there are no data standards. As soon as data 
standards exist users are more free to choose the software that 
addresses their needs, e.g. WMS-Servers. IMHO this makes it hard "to 
extend QGIS to include more "applied" solutions for local government". 
There are, however, examples: The Swiss QGEP project implementing the 
Swiss sewage data standard, the German PostNAS project implementing the 
German cadastral data standard. For non-stanardized data every 
user/company is free to model the data according to their specific needs 
therefore QGIS is probably not the right addressee. Instead the national 
QGIS user groups could try to standardize their data needs thus making 
it possible to enhance QGIS to support this "standard", which then would 
lead to an extension of QGIS.

just some more thoughts :)

Bernhard

Am 18.06.2015 um 08:10 schrieb Steve Golden:
> I am glad to have sparked some discussion.  Being a FOSS4G application forum,
> I am not entirely surprised by some of the comments, but all are
> appreciated. (sorry upfront, this turned into a long post which perhaps
> would be better suited on a blog of some sort)
>
> I am a bit envious of those individuals who work in the public sector
> outside of the U.S. because it seems like there is more acceptance and
> directive to use FOSS/FOSS4G as primary applications and not just something
> that you "kick the tires" with.  As for the use of FOSS4G applications in
> the States, I think that Randal and others summarized it pretty well (at
> least perhaps for the mid-sized cities).  I knew of some cities that were
> using Intergraph or MapInfo, but now it is ESRI all the way.  You read about
> some larger government organizations using FOSS for GIS web services, but my
> main focus, at least for this post, is small/mid-sized local government.
> ESRI seems to have done a very good sales job with their "ArcGIS for Local
> Government" branding.  And like my original post suggested, if you look at
> all of the tools, apps, and maps that ESRI provides for "free" (yes, this is
> part of the sales propaganda) it makes their product look really good for
> local governments might see it as a great GIS entry point or for those older
> systems looking to extend into more web mapping or application development.
> And as others pointed out, there is the reality that you have to have staff
> that are knowledgeable in open source and/or willing to figure things out.
> Maybe things will change over time, but the majority of people working in
> GIS learned with commercial software and probably haven't had the
> opportunity or need to look beyond what they know best and are comfortable
> with.
>
> Strange as it may seem, I work in local government in the Bay Area, CA (i.e.
> Silicon Valley) and like Randal stated and as far as I can tell, most of the
> local governments look around at one another and if one city has a working
> solution, the others pretty much duplicate with some variations (not
> necessary a bad idea as long as you duplicate an intelligent solution).
> When I talk GIS to staff at other cities, people generally want to discuss
> the latest tools and functions in ArcGIS.  At times I've tried to encourage
> others to look outside the box, but I generally get a chilling look or
> responses as if they don't have a clue that there are other technologies out
> there.  However, I also think there are a lot of mid-manager, non-GIS,
> non-technical individuals that are leading cities, control the budgets and
> staffing and don't really know anything except for what the majority of
> cities are using and what is advertized to them.  And like another poster
> stated, a lot of managers are more comfortable spending a bunch of money on
> a commercial solution that is advertised to work.  Paul Ramsey has some
> great  presentations <http://www.cleverelephant.ca/writings.html>   that
> speaks more to this which I can't agree more.
>
> It seems to me and others (based on comments in this thread and across the
> net), that the FOSS4G solutions (QGIS probably leading the way in desktop
> GIS) have evolved and are starting to replace commercial providers like
> ESRI.  If you follow ESRI products, you've probably seen the changes to try
> to include more "free" functions, tools, and access to certain data formats
> to keep up with the FOSS4G counterparts.  But alas, they are doing more to
> lock in their customers with the ESRI centric data specifications/formats
> and online user accounts which is leading to some consternation, well maybe
> a  revolt
> <https://geonet.esri.com/groups/arcgispro/blog/2015/04/24/arcgis-pro-is-this-the-start-of-a-revolt-against-esri#comment-14969>
> .
>
> While the foundation of my initial post (and even this one) is a little ESRI
> bashing (even though that the organization that I work for primarily uses it
> and is looking to sink further into it), and pondering the more wide spread
> use of FOSS4G, what my real aim was to understand if there was anyone
> looking to extend QGIS to include more "applied" solutions for local
> government.  I hate to think that replicating exactly what commercial
> providers are doing is the right thing to do, but I wonder even though QGIS
> has matured greatly over the past few years, and there are now supported
> open stacks of FOSS4G applications like OpenGeo and consulting firms who are
> providing support for QGIS, if there is something missing to make QGIS an
> easier entry point for a GIS software solution for local governments?  I
> suppose if there are more individuals who are willing to share map
> templates, customizations of QGIS, workflow processes, etc and if these were
> aggregated in some manner, then perhaps it would be a start.  I suppose in
> the global use of QGIS, what does local government mean and what does it do?
> Solutions might need to be sub-divided by country or region.
>
> Well, just some more thoughts...
>
> Steve
>
>
>
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