[Qgis-user] Alternative labels on each iteration?

[Nyall Dawson]

On 18 March 2017 at 02:57, Tobias Wendorff
<tobias.wendorff at tu-dortmund.de> wrote:

> Actually, I don't have money to pay the developers. But I know some
> corporations, which would like to switch from ArcGIS to QGIS to save
> money on license costs. But since those are into cartography, QGIS
> isn't really useful for them right now. I might convince them to
> spend some money on QGIS, but I bet, the answer will be "no" :(
>

That's odd logic. To me this reads that QGIS developers should spend
hours of volunteer time to make QGIS the hypothetical "perfect"
cartographic tool, and only then maybe organisations will start to
support QGIS. That's not how open source works.

Let me suggest an alternative approach:

A very similar conversation occurred recently regarding missing
functionality with discrete raster styling. You can follow the
conversation here:
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-developer/2017-January/046547.html

Basically, a user identified an important missing feature, but alone
was not able to develop this feature or fund its development. Instead,
the user organised a group of other users who were wanting this
functionality, and together they developed the specifications for the
change and fundraised for its development. The end result is that this
missing feature is going to land very shortly in QGIS master!

I suspect that you'll find many users would be interested in this
labeling enhancement, and that following a similar approach will lead
to the same successful end result.

> But since those are into cartography, QGIS isn't really useful for them right now.

I may be biased, but I strongly disagree with this statement! Fact is,
the "ideal" cartography tool doesn't exist yet. But every time I have
to use one of the commercial alternatives I'm reminded just how much
MORE powerful QGIS symbology is. QGIS is already a cartographic
powerhouse, it just may not yet have every single function required
for all users. But the beauty of open source is that it's possible for
anyone to fix this!

Nyall