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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | GISList: Re: import of e00 using ArcView3.2 |
| Date: |
01/12/2002 11:37:26 AM |
| From: |
Rick Gray |
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Robert,
Both Glen and Peter have made what I believe are very valid comments.
I guess I am a little miffed (is that a word?) at your complaint
because I am from Canada, and unlike the American way, Canadian
governments don't believe in free public access to data no matter
whose taxes paid for it. As a result, we have learned to accept and
deal with the data format given, if it is free, because it is such a
rare occurrence. It is only recently that a site (www.geogratis.com)
was put up by our federal gov't offering some small scale mapping.
The response has been good and they have been steadily adding to it.
They at least offer the data in both .e00 AND .shp, in =A0most
instances.
My first reaction to your posting was "quit your whining - do you
know how lucky you are to get public domain data in the first
place?". As I have thought about it some more, I can appreciate that
if you are accustomed to getting something for free, you may not want
any inconvenience to accompany that acquisition. However, there is a
well used phrase -> you get what you pay for.
We could get into a deep philosphical discussion about whether or not
you have already paid for it (in your taxes) but I think you likely
only paid a few cents, in that case. Tens of of thousands of others
paid their few cents, too. Is this relevant? I don't know. It just
seems to me that the data is free, offered as a service in the name
of good will on your government's part, and that flaming will only
serve to annoy those who are doing the offering. Try some
constructive approaches, or push your (inexpensive) GIS software
producer to incorporate a translator.
BTW, I am only an ESRI user because I was able to buy their software
as a student at a very reasonable price and I realized that, like it
or not, they ARE the industry standard. I also use MFWorks, MapInfo,
Idrisi, and some others on a regular basis. But as a business person,
I recognize that if you want to be successful, you can't always work
with cheap tools. It can be done, but what you don't pay for in cash
you often pay for in other ways.
Rick Gray
Rick Gray
Older than average student (yet again!)
GIS Applications Specialist program
Sir Sandford Fleming College
Lindsay, Ontario
rigray@flemingc.on.ca
rick_gray@canoemail.com
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