[Qgis-user] Local Government for QGIS
"Rodríguez-Vargas, A."
arielrod24 at gmail.com
Fri Jun 19 07:04:32 PDT 2015
Congratulations Carlos! That is right and the way!
Ariel Rodríguez-Vargas
On 19.06.2015 08:19, Carlos Cerdán wrote:
> Hi there:
>
> As open source philosophy, personal motivation has a big weight. One
> enthusiastic QGIS user can do difference to motivate other GIS users
> into QGIS adventure.
>
> I'm working in a local government for two years and half. It took me
> almost a year convince other that our geodatabase is public and that
> we had to share shapes also, not PDF only (Sorry... life in tropics).
>
> Next step was QGIS. I developed a pilot QGIS course into the office:
> two hours each day, per one week, doing exercises with our own data.
>
> QGIS has new followers over here. The seed is sown.
>
> Here, the main feature that attracts to QGIS is the language.... so i
> think it'll be great if plugins can be also translated.
>
> Cheers from Peru
>
> Carlos Cerdán
>
>
> 2015-06-19 6:30 GMT-05:00 Bernhard Ströbl <bernhard.stroebl at jena.de
> <mailto:bernhard.stroebl at jena.de>>:
>
> 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
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Local-Government-for-QGIS-tp5210489p5211542.html
> Sent from the Quantum GIS - User mailing list archive at
> Nabble.com.
> _______________________________________________
> Qgis-user mailing list
> Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
>
>
> __________ Information from ESET Mail Security, version of
> virus signature database 11804 (20150618) __________
>
> The message was checked by ESET Mail Security.
> http://www.eset.com
>
>
>
>
>
> __________ Information from ESET Mail Security, version of virus
> signature database 11811 (20150619) __________
>
> The message was checked by ESET Mail Security.
> http://www.eset.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Qgis-user mailing list
> Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Qgis-user mailing list
> Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-user/attachments/20150619/28224263/attachment.html>
More information about the Qgis-user
mailing list