Atanas Entchev is but I don’t understand why. I too remember ArcView 1 and at least what I remember wasn’t very positive. That said, he’s got a good point, but doesn’t come to the same conclusion that I would have (I’m skipping ArcCAD because I don’t want to even touch that can of worms).
Atanas says that there is no base of the GIS pyramid. Now before you say the same things I would say, we have to realize that Atanas’ GIS pyramid is really an ESRI pyramid. He’s right, you have the ArcInfo guys at the top, the ArcView guys in the middle and at the bottom you have what? ArcReader and ArcExplorer might be that bottom but I’d wager there are more people using ArcInfo in the world than use ArcReader. So maybe that is the whole point of ArcGIS Explorer, making GIS available to anyone who wants it with compatibility with ESRI “standards”.
But wait a minute, didn’t I say I would have come to a different conclusion than Atanas did? Right off the top of my head I can name QGIS and uDig as great free GIS programs that people can use instead of spending thousands on ArcView. Of course it isn’t fair to either program as they are both much more powerful than ArcView 1 was or ArcGIS Explorer will be. Of course Atanas’ article points out the biggest problem that open source GIS has in the traditional GIS community (the one that doesn’t read blogs Dave). Visibility! Says Atanas:
The GIS pyramid base is real, and it’s huge. It needs a simple solution.
The solution is there, but the eyeballs are focused on ESRI. Heck I’m not even bringing up Google Earth as the base of the pyramid and who knows what the future holds for it.
Once a year, thousands of GIS professionals get together in one of the greatest cities in the world, for a love fest and open source GIS isn’t invited. Might be time to get some money together, and throw a party guys. Invite all those ESRI fanboys, show them some cool software (throw in some beer and I’ll be there) and open some eyes. Until then, professional GIS will be dominated by those who exist in an ESRI centric world.
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James, why would I want ESRI fanboys at my party? What do they bring? Maybe if they made the best ribs in the world or brought a double magnum of Gaja Barolo I would reconsider.
How do you expect to break into the marketplace, by offering t-shirts and mouse pads with logos on it?
Of course if all you want are tools to be used by only the elite, then by all means continue.
I was at Where this year and it was an interesting mix of people interested in communicating geography. There were your open source guys, data providers (who don’t care about apps), big gamers, pushpin mappers, and your traditional GIS folks. From talking to the different groups I could tell that those developers just getting into the LBS and social geodata apps were ignorant of the mainstream GIS community (ESRI users)—which really isn’t a bad thing. Some of the traditional GIS people who I spoke with were open minded types, but were having concerns with how to manage data, capture metadata, etc. All groups were like ships passing in the night. Jeremy noted that the slippy map guys needed GIS guys, and the GIS guys needed to lighten up and think in terms of lowest common denominator—even though we did make fun of pushpins at times we realized not everyone needs layers and layers of data with complicated buttons. During the GRASS and FEMA presentations at Where, there was a lot of interest in “how do you incorporate traditional GI&S into emerging geomedia platforms?” I think there can be a bridge built between these different groups.
So, what I am saying is “yes, open source geography folks have a shindig.” Invite the ESRI peeps, they’re just as interested in helping others too. Show off GRASS, uDIG, OSSIM, OpenStreetMap, and whatever else to get your message out there that this isn’t for the financially inclined.
On a side note: I’ve had ESRI folks ask me what would happen if they open sourced ArcView. I had to reply with a major stupified look because I didn’t realize what I was listening to. All I could say was look at Autodesk and the Open Geospatial Foundation.
Seriously, now: you guys would have had a great time at any of the past three MapServer User Meetings. Each year has seen more and more open minded people (not fanboys) crossing over from the ESRI user base. Did you not attend OSG05 for lack of a personal invitation? Granted, FOSS4G is a bit harder to attend this year, and there’s a chance of losing momentum in North America.
It doesn’t matter if I go to an open source GIS conference as you don’t need to sell me on the idea. The decision makers for many industries will be spending time in San Diego enjoying the sites and talking with Jack Dangermond. You can’t change the world starting at the bottom. You need to attack from the top.
Now I get it. You’re talking about managers and C*Os. When you said “fanboys”, I took that to mean certain developers, analysts, and bloggers
A CIO can’t be a fanboy?
Honestly when you talk to them sometimes you get that feeling.
“You can’t get fired for buying IBM.” “You can’t get fired for buying Microsoft.” “You can’t get fired for buying ESRI.”
Atanas:
All true statements and I almost added it to my blog post.
Yah; “You can’t get fired for buying ESRI.”
But your CFO might fire you when you try to pay your maintenance, but that is a whole other issue.
You might see less people in the anti-ESRI camp if the overall costs were not so high for acquisition and support.
just my couple of pennies…
Besides the ones you can name off the top of your head, what other free GIS “viewers” out there can make up the complicated bottom of that pyramid?
I think there is a fair case to be made for more diversity in tools as you go towards the bottom of the pyramid. At the top, you basically have people making data from physical collections. In the middle you have people doing analytics both for their own purposes and to produce derivative data. At the bottom of the pyramid you have people using that data to run their business and live their life…there’s a lot more variety there than there is at the top where the basic tasks are making vector and raster products.
It’s more important to have good integration at the bottom than it is to all use the same clients. As long as we can all collaborate on the data- it won’t matter much what we do it with.
I do wonder about ArcReader though- it really didn’t take off. I was looking into this company called TerraGo who are pushing a format called geopdf. It sounds a lot like ESRiIs PMF format, except it’s actually readable with just AcrobatReader (to do much gis stuff, you need a Acrobat plugin.) I don’t if it will take off, but maybe the real bottom of the pyramid is that maps are just in everything- to googlemaps mashups on every website, to office documents, to phones…
I think I fall in Sean’s camp. I am not sure what the reaction of people @ ESRI-UC would be to an open source GIS presentation, but my guess would be:
uDig – “That’s not nearly as good as ArcMap, or even ArcView. Why is it relevant to me if it does not do what my current tools do now?”
PostGIS – “That is interesting, but can I connect to it with ArcMap? Talk to me when you have something works exactly like ArcSDE but is free.”
Mapserver – “That seems a little complex to configure, and there is no out-of-the-box application that looks any good.”
CIO – “What do you think, technical advisor?” Advisor – “It is all half-baked, sir.”
So James, I think we do want tools to be used by the elite. And only the elite can really appreciate the parts of the tools that are substantially better than the proprietary equivalents — the openness, the modularity, the scriptability, the configurability. There is not a lot of point in “breaking into the marketplace” when there is no per-unit incentive to do so.
We don’t want to market to the masses, they would probably think our products stink! (Not enough documentation, low consistency between products, bad “first impression” for non-technical installs.)
But, we do need to talk to the elites. They might find OSS useful, and they might actually find the community stimulating and contribute back. Perhaps the ESRI developers conference would be a better venue for an alternative forum, if one were inclined to think about such things.
“We don’t want to market to the masses, they would probably think our products stink! (Not enough documentation, low consistency between products, bad “first impression” for non-technical installs.)”
Paul, some say that about ESRI products these days. Then again you are probably right, Google Earth or NASA World Wind will be that low end of the pyramid anyway. They seem to want that place to themselves.
On the subject of the “masses” and open source geospatial and ESRI, an interesting irony occurs to me: while the masses have no uses for open source software (or ESRI software, generally), services that the masses do have a use for are far more likely to be built on open source software than ESRI software (for reasons of scalability (technical and fiscal), customizability, etc).
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GIS: What’s there to talk about?
I haven’t indulged in metablogging for some time now, so excuse the lapse. Re Dave Bouwman’s post on the supposed lack of conversations on GIS blogs, with follow-ups from Adena Schutzberg , Frank, Allan Doyle and James Fee. Some thoughts:…
[...] Paul Ramsey seems pretty sure that he has no time for “the masses”: “We don’t want to market to the masses, they would probably think our products stink! (Not enough documentation, low consistency between products, bad “first impression” for non-technical installs.)” [...]
[...] Some are calling for the return of ArcView 1 or something simple – forget that! I want Workstation and Coverages. Some of you might say it is archaic and didn’t have the slick gui – well for the “elites” that part doesn’t matter. [...]