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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | RE: [gislist] GIS software/hardware donations for 3rd World |
| Date: |
01/25/2005 06:55:01 AM |
| From: |
Wolf Naegeli |
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At 2:31 PM -0500 1/21/05, Anthony Quartararo wrote:
>I too have heard this very strong desire in the developing world, over and
>over. However, when pressed, 99% of all people
Anthony, is this a serious statistic for which you can cite an unbiased study?
>that bring it up qualify
>their desire for open source as something they see as the only alternative
>to ESRI, Intergraph, MapInfo, Autodesk, Smallworld, etc. because of price,
>bottom line. Has much less to do with the side by side technical
>capabilities comparison between any/all COTS GIS products. So, the
>conclusion is, that if the TCO of COTS GIS were more appropriately priced
>for a global market rather than making it MORE expensive (vs. US pricing) in
>some international locations, then I would wager that no one would ever
>entertain open source GIS, except for the occasional hobbyist.
If you'd be willing to approach this topic "from a fresh perspective"
(to use your own words) and attend an Open Source GIS conference, you
would find many people from government agencies and private
enterprises who use open source GIS tools not primarily--or even not
at all--because of price, but because the tools they have selected
for their work do exactly what they need to get done: with less
system overhead, faster, and/or more conveniently than any of the
commercial tools.
And, you'd meet others who have chosen open source GIS applications
because they can more readily adapt them to do precisely what they
want them to do and because they have found a community of
like-minded individuals who are willing to generously share their
knowledge, experience, and often code snippets or more for doing
customizations and, not least, more ambitious development of missing
features that are unavailable in any COTS software.
Open source GIS is still in its infancy, but several of the tools
that have been mentioned in this thread are reliable, very usable,
and easier to learn than many of the commercial products. Open source
GIS development is gaining steam very rapidly now.
Can you ignore the fact that more than two thirds of all websites on
the Internet now use Apache, i.e. open source webserver software?
Actually, it's more often the professionals rather than the hobbyists
who install Apache and forego using the Internet Information Server
software that may have come bundled and paid for with their server
box!
What would the Internet be without Jakarta Tomcat, JBoss, OpenSSL,
GNU, Linux, etc, etc? Today, open source software powers the
bulk--and some of the most sophisticated--Web applications!
Also, let's refrain from patronizing people in developing countries.
They are as smart as we are and often make up with resourcefulness
what they lack in education and buying power. In remote areas of
Africa and South America, I have met mechanics with only the most
primitive tools who keep old vehicles running that most of the best
equipped master mechanics in Europe or the United States would tell
you are simply not fixable anymore without repair parts.
Generally I've found people to be more patient and prepared to work
around obstacles. Time doesn't have a high monetary value, and there
are fewer distractions competing for their attention.
What's far more important for the success of a project than the
specifics of the tools and resources we give them is their
understanding of what the potential benefits to them will be and what
the key concepts are that can lead to the desired solution. Thus, it
is very important to get their full participation in the definition
of the problems that they need and want to solve, and in making
direct connections between specific local aspects of the problems and
the process steps of solving them.
Much of what we do with GIS can be done without GIS, albeit less
conveniently and a lot less quickly, perhaps. But in many communities
non-GIS methods may be more appropriate and much more effective. At
least for starters.
Hop over to <http://www.iapad.org/> and explore the richness of
resources that have been developed for working with less privileged
people and the marvelous results that have been achieved with them.
Best wishes,
Wolf
Wolf Naegeli, PhD
Systems Architect
Southern Appalachian Information Node
National Biological Information Infrastructure
Senior Research Scientists
Energy, Environment, and Resources Center
The University of Tennessee--Knoxville
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