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<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Hi Andreas,</div><div><br></div><div>Am 28.07.2015, 21:54 Uhr, schrieb Andreas Neumann <a.neumann@carto.net>:<br></div><br><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0.80ex; border-left: #0000FF 2px solid; padding-left: 1ex">
Hi Arni,<br>
<br>
I think the QGIS community should start an effort to better support
the Geopackage format (or any OGR format) - and should spend some
financial resources to allow a developer to work several days to
improve support for the Geopackage format. I suggested that to the
QGIS PSC, but it doesn't seem to be a priority at the moment. Other
issues seem to be more pressing (such as bug fixing, infrastructure,
developer meetings).<br>
<br>
However, any organization can come up and fund development to
improve the situation. Or start a crowd-funding initiative to
collect financial ressources from several organizations/people. It
is just that noone had enough resources (money or time) to get rid
of the Shapefiles in many places.<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div>it is easily said, that the community should start an effort, but how should this be organized, if it's not organized by the organization already existing?</div><div><br></div><div>You have a much better insight into the structure and the people involved than most of us.</div><div><br></div><div>The recent crowd-funding initiatives I witnessed (and donated for) were successfull, even though the average users presumably had no idea what the subjects were about (automated testing: http://blog.vitu.ch/10102014-1046/crowdfunding-initiative-automated-testing , GRASS Plugin upgrade: http://www.gissula.eu/qgis-grass-plugin-crowdfunding/ )</div><div><br></div><div>But those initiatives came from the developers themselves, who exactly know what has to be done, how much time it will take, and how much money has to be there to get things done.</div><div><br></div><div>To start an arbitrary crowd-funding initiative just by anyone, with no idea how to actually define the goal and not even having a developer at hand is possible, but is it a good idea?</div><div><br></div><div>When things then go wrong, the hole way of supporting the project will be discredited.</div><div><br></div><div>Quite some while ago, I made the proposal to set up a website, where people could search or post feature requests, which could be up- or downvoted by other users, which could be managed/moderated/combined/split by "experts" and after some time, for the best-rated proposal(s), a crowd-funding initiative would be started.</div><div><br></div><div>The echo on this proposal from the "officials" was not really enthusiastic. Reasons: No time, no money, not enough developers.</div><div>Vicious circle completed...</div><div><br></div><div>QGIS is a developer-driven project, and I can imagine that the devs prefer a sponsor with a defined goal and 5.000€.</div><div>I can maybe donate 25€ on something (ahh, I would even spend 50€ to get rid of f... shape files, and I'm sure that we would find another 100 people feeling the same).</div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0.80ex; border-left: #0000FF 2px solid; padding-left: 1ex"><br>
The most difficult problem to solve is Processing with SAGA, but
other than that, at least the "Save AS" and the vector menu could be
improved to offer e.g. Geopackage as default, or let the user choose
any OGR format.<br>
<br>
If you would start such an initiative I would very much support it.
And who knows - maybe even the QGIS PSC would partially support such
an initiative (maybe also financially).<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Wouldn't it be better to start a crowd-funding initiative with the goal, to set up a proper regime for crowd-funding feature requests by setting up the necessary infrastructure (website), paying someone to take care of the requests and deal with possible developers?</div><div><br></div><div>May sound a bit weird, but still better than the frequent "You could hire someone to code this feature"-answers on this list.</div><div><br></div><div>But who would organize this?</div><div>... in the vicious circle again ...</div><div><br></div><div>I nevertheless love QGIS :)</div><div>Bernd</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0.80ex; border-left: #0000FF 2px solid; padding-left: 1ex"><br>
Andreas<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 28.07.2015 18:20, Árni Geirsson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:CALtMHXhbTZZ92UuXV3GOSrSJ2vb2hOuzuD+0S_cQpsJrUuGRYA@mail.gmail.com" type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Thank you Alex - that answers my question
completely.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Arni</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all">
<div>
<div class="gmail_signature">
<div><br>
</div>
<font color="#666666">Árni Geirsson<br>
<span style="font-size:x-small"><font color="#666666"><b>Alta
ehf</b> // +354 582 5000 // +354 897 9549</font></span></font>
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<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 4:15 PM, Alex
Mandel <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:tech_dev@wildintellect.com" target="_blank">tech_dev@wildintellect.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">It's more
elaborate than that. Not all applications in the toolbox can<br>
read Spatialite yet either (e.g. SAGA). So the intermediate
is something<br>
all the tools can use. At some point the toolbox might get
developed to<br>
were any ogr data source can be used for the intermediates,
but it isn't<br>
there yet. I ran into this issue with Postgis a couple of
years ago, and<br>
the whole point of using Postgis was to escape the
limitations of the<br>
shapefile (particularly file size).<br>
<br>
In some ways if you use Spatialite or Postgis you don't
actually need a<br>
lot of the basic tools as those can all be done with SQL via
the DB<br>
Manager or QSpatialite.<br>
<br>
As for Geopackage, keep in mind it's an exchange format.
Even with 2.8<br>
I've had no issues reading GPKG files in, though I've been
creating them<br>
with ogr2ogr on the command line to convert whole databases
at a time<br>
between Spatialite and other formats.<br>
<br>
Shapefile still remains the lowest common denominator. I
agree other<br>
formats should be suggested first by the save dialog since
shp can cause<br>
data loss (date/time, field names, etc).<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Alex<br>
<span class=""><br>
<br>
On 07/28/2015 09:04 AM, Árni Geirsson wrote:<br>
> Thanks for the answer Jim. I understand that the
shapefiles are lingua<br>
> franca but to me that would imply that they should be
used when exchange<br>
> with other applications is needed - which is not
always. But I had not<br>
> realized that I might be constraining the set of
available tools if I use<br>
> SpatiaLite. Does this mean that if I have my date in
SpatiaLite, many of<br>
> the tools in the Processing toolbox would not be
available to me?<br>
><br>
> Arni<br>
><br>
><br>
> Árni Geirsson<br>
</span>> *Alta ehf* // <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:%2B354%20582%205000" value="+3545825000">+354
582 5000</a> // <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:%2B354%20897%209549" value="+3548979549">+354
897 9549</a><br>
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á Twitter <<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://twitter.com/alta_ehf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/alta_ehf</a>> //
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<span class="">><br>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 3:54 PM, James Keener <<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:jim@jimkeener.com">jim@jimkeener.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
><br>
>> More tools support it. Spatialite wasn't
supported in esri until very<br>
>> recently and other tools may not support anything
but shape files. It's<br>
>> become a lingual franca, and like English: it's
terrible, but works well<br>
>> enough.<br>
>><br>
>> Jim<br>
>><br>
</span><span class="">>> On July 28, 2015 11:38:24 AM
AST, "Árni Geirsson" <<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:arni@alta.is">arni@alta.is</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>>> Hello<br>
>>> I find it interesting that the ancient
shapefile format is (or at least<br>
>>> appears to be) the default file format for
QGIS when SpatiaLite seems to be<br>
>>> a much more capable format. I have been using
mostly shapefiles and when<br>
>>> using for example the tools under the vector
menu, intermediate results are<br>
>>> saved as shapefiles, leading to a big pile of
files after a short session<br>
>>> of vector processing. Now, I have discovered
that by using the processing<br>
>>> tools the intermediates can be temporary
files (still shapefiles, just<br>
>>> hidden away in a temporary folder). After
saving a temporary file as a<br>
>>> SpatiaLite file, I can enter field names
longer than 10 characters but I<br>
>>> can not add a text field that accommodates
more than 255 characters.<br>
>>> So my question is: Why is the shapefile
format the default?<br>
>>><br>
>>> I have also noticed that with 2.10 I can save
in Geopackage format. Does<br>
>>> that mean that support for this format has
improved?<br>
>>><br>
>>> Any insights are highly appreciated.<br>
>>><br>
>>> Arni Geirsson<br>
>>><br>
</span>>>> ------------------------------<br>
>>><br>
>>> Qgis-user mailing list<br>
>>> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:Qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org">Qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
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>>><br>
>>><br>
>> --<br>
>> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please
excuse my brevity.<br>
>><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
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</blockquote><br><br><br><div id="M2Signature"><div>-- </div><div>Bernd Vogelgesang<br>Siedlerstraße 2<br>91083 Baiersdorf/Igelsdorf<br>Tel: 09133-825374</div></div></body></html>