James Fee GIS Blog

37 responses so far ↓

• 1 Dave // Aug 23, 2006 at 9:26 am

  I think Steve’s point is that even if you pumped a decade’s worth of ESRI support into OS consulting, you still will not have anything close to ArcMap in terms of editing, analysis and cartography. And since that’s what most GIS users need in order to get work done, there is little compelling about current OS GIS options.

• 2 Dylan Beaudette // Aug 23, 2006 at 9:46 am

  I wouldn’t quite agree with all of that. In terms of vector editing, yes, FOSS GIS is still behind. A flashy GUI to satisfy one’s button clicking urges is still missing from much of the FOSS GIS world as well. In terms of analysis, no way- FOSS GIS can perform as well, and I would argue sometimes better, than the other commercial alternatives. On top of that much of the FOSS GIS anaylsis (ok, I am talking about GRASS and related tools here) is backed up by current researchers in the field- most of whom can be contacted directly for support. There is certainly a tool for every job / budget. However, as they say: when all you have is an ArcHammer everything looks like an ArcNail just as a disclaimer, I use both ESRI tools and FOSS GIS.

• 3 Doug // Aug 23, 2006 at 10:12 am

  Dylan, flashy GUIs aren’t for show, they help people get work done. “Flashy” GUIs are why Apple became famous, MS made Windows, and Linux is trying to make a good flashy GUI. Unless your idea of editing is issuing SQL commands, you will use a GUI. Unless you like the mess of lines and cryptic keyboard shortcuts that is autocad, you like “flashy” GUIs. A non flashy GUI can easily result in greatly lowered productivity (GIMP comes to mind compared to photoshop) which means that you get less work done.

  How are the ArcGIS analysis functions not backed by current research in the field (examples please), and how are you not able to contact ESRI for support?

  And as for the original article, yes I would like to see ArcGIS on OS X in some way other than using Parallels.

• 4 Doug // Aug 23, 2006 at 10:22 am

  Cathedral or bazzar? Depends on what you want. Highly integrated, coupled, reliable systems (e.g. ArcGIS, OS X, iApps, Word, Excel) can be cathedrals. Well known parts of the software stack that don’t need much end user interaction/ have very well known data formats (e.g. operating system APIs, databases, web browsers, web servers) can be bazzars.

  The question is what do you need to get your work done? Are you solving cathedral problems or bazzar problems? When I was in college and the cathedral vs bazzar article was written, I wondered what the bazzar could offer me if I wanted or needed a cathedral. They are both valid approaches to different problems, and sometimes you want a master architect making sure that things work smoothly, or that they just plain work.

  2c

• 5 Dave // Aug 23, 2006 at 10:30 am

  Dylan brings up another OS adoption issue: support. For the most part, non-corporate support mechanisms don’t scale.

  Suppose US Forest Service dropped ESRI and moved to FOSS. Would/could those researchers respond to the barrage of help requests?

  This support space is where DMSolutions (and others in Canada) have succeeded re: MapServer. Perhaps as we see incremental movement on front-end OS GIS’s, maybe we’ll see some more support optins as well.

  Cheers,

  Dave

• 6 Dylan Beaudette // Aug 23, 2006 at 11:01 am

  Couple replies:
  “Dylan, flashy GUIs aren’t for show, they help people get work done. “

  This may be true in some cases: I have been a mac user for the last 10 years for a couple of reasons, one of them being the great interface. However, much of the work that I do fits into the UNIX way of life. Not only does this allow for great productivity, but it also gives me a simple and concise _history_ of what I have been doing.

  “Unless your idea of editing is issuing SQL commands, you will use a GUI.”
  This brings up a good point: some people have been trained to puch buttons and navigate menus. Some people have been trained / or have learned how to do the same thing (although i would argue more) via SQL (or your favorite language here). Different approaches: often best suited for different tasks. In terms of getting work done, I have been able to consistantly increase my productivity since I switched to FOSS in general. GUI or not.

  ESRI analysis: point me to where I can _see_ the algorithms involved in any of the raster analysis functions. I am not apt to trust the output from a black box.

  Have you tried contacting ESRI? Ever get more than a “please see this KB article…” BS?

  Granted- FOSS GIS has a long way to go, but it is much farther ahead than most are willing to admit. Finally, it is the only resource for the other half of the planet that does not have a huge disposable budget.

  Cheers,

• 7 Doug // Aug 23, 2006 at 12:21 pm

  “point me to where I can _see_ the algorithms involved in any of the raster analysis functions. I am not apt to trust the output from a black box.”

  So for example, you don’t trust route that Google Maps gives you and you don’t trust the search results that Google gives you because you haven’t personally verified that the binary code that is being executed came from the source code you saw?

  If there is a bug in ESRI’s raster logic, post it on their forums. ESRI, MapInfo, Manifold, Smallworld, etc. aren’t interested in algorithmic deception, they are giving you code that works, which is the basis of why they can charge you.

• 8 Paul Ramsey // Aug 23, 2006 at 1:07 pm

  Great comment: “even if you pumped a decade’s worth of ESRI support into OS consulting, you still will not have anything close to ArcMap in terms of editing, analysis and cartography”

  But if 1% of ESRI’s customers *did*, then they *would*. Chicken, meet egg.

• 9 Dylan Beaudette // Aug 23, 2006 at 1:50 pm

  Doug:
  “So for example, you don’t trust route that Google Maps gives you and you don’t trust the search results that Google gives you because you haven’t personally verified that the binary code that is being executed came from the source code you saw?”

  This wasn’t my suggestion. I am not questioning the source to binary pathways. I am interested in HOW the algorithm functions. in the research world, magically getting a number from a function doesn’t always cut it.

  Note that this is not necessarily the case for everyone.

  A pissing match over FOSS GIS and ESRI would fill volumes: I am speaking about personal (and to an extent others’) views of how research should be conducted.

  D

• 10 James Fee // Aug 23, 2006 at 2:55 pm

  I’m wondering if there will ever be “Open Source Off-the-shelf” GIS software. As a consultant I’m not too worried about that, but I wonder how many users get turned off from open source GIS because it is difficult to use. For every person I’ve turned on to QGIS or uDig I can name 2 or 3 who just can never get into it. That is where consultants come in, but matching up clients with consultants needs to work better. Maybe that is where Google search comes in.

• 11 Paul Ramsey // Aug 23, 2006 at 3:01 pm

  I think there already is “OSS OTS” James, in the sense that Mapserver and PostGIS are already as easy or easier to install and get running as their proprietary analogues. Your examples are about the desktop though, and I believe you are right to muse there. The “minimum acceptable” bar of features and finish on the desktop is very high indeed.

• 12 James Fee // Aug 23, 2006 at 3:11 pm

  Very true Paul, MSFW is a perfect example. Getting ArcIMS configured is much harder than people sometimes are willing to admit. It isn’t a one click install and neither is ArcGIS Server.

  My point is this, when you pay ESRI for maintenance, you are essentially paying for their help installing and using their products. To think there will be that same level of support with open source is incorrect. You can get that level of support with consultants specializing in OSS and usually at a much lower cost than ESRI maintenance and the initial cost of their software would run you.

• 13 Cam W. // Aug 23, 2006 at 5:30 pm

  I’m afraid I don’t understand Dylan’s point. I believe ESRI products are some of the best documented tools I’ve ever seen. I’m not suggesting their arn’t large holes in the documentation, but in my experience if you ask you will get an answer.

  Here is a good example of how well some things are documented:
  http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.1/index.cfm?ID=2992&TopicName=Darcy%20flow%20analysis&rand=6&pid=2991

• 14 Chris C. // Aug 23, 2006 at 8:11 pm

  OS GIS will never go mainstream when there is a cheap alternative to ESRI products - Manifold.

  If you are serious about GIS you should be investing less than $300 to see what a modern GIS should be like.

  Here is what Manifold users see as Manifold 7x top 10 features:
  http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/9650/

• 15 DevMonkey // Aug 23, 2006 at 8:57 pm

  I was just thinking that there hadn’t been a Manifold using telling us how great their low end GIS is in this thread yet and now we have it.

  I can sleep sound tonight.

• 16 Dylan // Aug 23, 2006 at 10:40 pm

  Well that is a pretty good example of documentation. Certainly in a different style than this: http://grass.itc.it/gdp/html_grass61/v.surf.rst.html . I am not suggesting that there aren’t some good examples of well documented features in ESRI land, and if you have had good experience with their support all the better. While we are trading stories, I haven’t seen a lot of great answers in the support forums. As with anything your mileage will vary.

  D

• 17 Doug // Aug 23, 2006 at 11:14 pm

  “Advanced memory management technology allows Manifold System to operate with no limit on the size of projects, no limit on the number of layers in maps and no limits on the size of images and surfaces”

  Aaah yes, nothing like the Manifold marketing department. But wait, it gets better!

  “Manifold 7x’s image capabilities are so powerful and so extensive they are rivaled only by professional quality remote sensing / image processors and by professional quality graphics arts programs like Adobe PhotoShop.”

  That’s right, Manifold (FYI a steal at $245) is soooo powerful that it has Adobe quaking in its boots over the fear that legions of Photoshop users will abandon Adobe and become GIS photo editers.

  Such power! I too will sleep well tonight. At least ESRI has the good graces to quote cite the users who are experiencing unlimited power.

  “Hundreds of Ordnance Survey employees use the field editing and data management system Ordnance Survey MasterMap to maintain and update the national large-scale dataset. This is a 400-gigabyte dataset that contains more than 400 million features.” (from GIS for National Mapping Agencies pdf)

• 18 Xav // Aug 24, 2006 at 1:39 am

  I think Dylan hits an important nail on the head when he notes the closed nature of ESRI products means professionally you can’t trust the algorithms used in ArcGIS.

  There are often several ways of solving a problem and its often not clear which approach ESRI has taken, and there is no way of finding out. Maybe if you pay them $10M a year matainence they may take a look in the source code for you (I doubt it), otherwise you’re on your own. I’m writing from personal experience, I worked for a multinational company paying lots of money to ESRI but they couldn’t tell us which algorithm they had chosen to implement a method on one of their objects. If we are selling the results of our analysis to someone else, we have liability, we need to know exactly how it was done, we spent a year writing a model from scratch in ArcObjects as a consequence.

• 19 SGD // Aug 24, 2006 at 5:31 am

  If you have to actually make money using GIS, ESRI is the only way to go.

  GRASS, uDig, etc are completely worthless in the real (non-academic, for profit) world. Good luck getting any type of paying job with that experience. In 11 years of consulting, I have never seen a potential client even utter the words “open source”.

• 20 Dylan // Aug 24, 2006 at 8:34 am

  If you need to produce a 300 page thesis with hundreds of figures and tables LATEX is the only way to go. MS word and look alikes are completely worthless in the academic, research world.

  Different worlds, different needs, different tools. While GRASS isn’t ready as an ESRI dropin replacement, it has a place in the GIS world. This is why I bring it up in commonents like these.

  D

• 21 Doug // Aug 24, 2006 at 8:57 am

  Xav what algorithm did you need to know the implementation of? Did you tell ESRI that if you didn’t find out that you were going to have to write your own code? Just curious.

• 22 Jesse // Aug 24, 2006 at 9:40 am

  Hey Chris C, thanks for Manifold sales pitch: “it’s cheap, so it’s better!”

• 23 Chris C. // Aug 24, 2006 at 9:49 am

  Wow a lot of knee jerk responses there to my posting, got any real criticisms of Manifold?

  Maybe you are in denial that a ‘cheap’ GIS alternative to ArcWhatever isn’t a good thing?

• 24 Doug // Aug 24, 2006 at 10:16 am

  Chris are you saying that manifold can handle a raster of infinite size?

  Lets cut to the chase of the previous marketing quote I gave above:

  “Advanced … no limit… no limit… no limits on the size of images and surfaces”

  Someone might get the impression that your software can handle rasters and images without limit. Can Manifold handle a raster of 2^256 cells?

  Jeez you flip the bit in the compiler to write x86-64 code instead of x86 32 bit code and the next thing you do is promise your users unlimited power.

  A cheap alternative to “ArcWhatever” is fine. I don’t think that people mind that in the least. However your marketing material is balatantly dismissive of well everything that isn’t:

  1) Manifold- “We invinted REAL GIS!”
  2) Microsoft- “They invented the REAL OS!”
  3) Some database that we had to support because we found that we couldn’t get away with just supporting MS databases because there are DB admins who for obviously selfish reasons refuse to use Microsoft’s great and wonderful products, thanks be to Bill.

  People read this stuff along with the humorously annonymous “User comments” and start wondering if:

  1) You have a shrine to Steve Balmer in your receptionist’s lounge.
  2) You are trolling for a buyout from the great and powerful Bill.
  3) In a former life you wrote for Pravda.

• 25 Chris C. // Aug 24, 2006 at 10:28 am

  I don’t work for Manifold, I am just a lowly user. I think Maifold is a great fully featured GIS that costs a fraction of ESRI; that’s my opinion, however much I’d like Manifold to pay me for doing so.

  As to the claims made in the article, you would have to contact Manifold: sales@manifold.net.

• 26 Jesse // Aug 24, 2006 at 10:54 am

  Well, if Manifold would ever allow for free trial testing of their software, I’d love to check it out (believe me, I have a love-hate affair with ESRI products).

  Unfortunately I can’t afford to fork over $250 just to test software…

• 27 Ed // Aug 24, 2006 at 12:10 pm

  I’ve been in positions to recommend a gis to clients and I’ve always wanted to suggest Manifold but I’ve never used the program. I doubt I will try it for $250. I’m more prone to recommend Qgis, Saga, Udig or the other open source projects. At least I can tell the client the shortcomings and advantages of the open source project, speaking from experience.

• 28 Chris C. // Aug 24, 2006 at 12:50 pm

  Manifold offers a 30 day money back guarantee on most versions: which amounts to a 30-day free trial, excluding shipping costs.

  I’ve heard from some users that they looked at the on-line manual and that hepled in their decision to buy it, here’s the link:
  http://www.manifold.net/doc/700/manifold.htm

• 29 Dimitri Rotow // Aug 24, 2006 at 10:30 pm

  Interesting… I’ve not visited this blog before, nor is it likely I’ll visit again as it has an ESRI focus, but somehow during a near-random following of web threads I came across it.

  Let’s see….

  “I was just thinking that there hadn’t been a Manifold using telling us how great their low end GIS is in this thread yet and now we have it.”

  …Talk about missing the obvious!

  First, the writer seems not to realize that a few years ago no one talked about Manifold, no one knew what it was, yet now despite no advertising by the company, no attendence at trade shows and nothing but word of mouth from Manifold users, well, Manifold has somehow emerged as a phenomenon the writer expects to be mentioned even in an ESRI forum. And by users no less.

  Second, the writer appears to have zero awareness of what Manifold is, given the utter inanity of the “low end” comment.

  Something that Oracle has just selected to replace ESRI, that already far outsells ESRI on desktops worldwide, that is used for IMS installations about 100 to 1 over ESRI, that includes 64-bit native capability and multicore/multiprocessor capability (when ESRI has neither 64-bit nor multiprocessing ability), that has far more sophisticated topological processing than ESRI, that delivers the world’s best spatial SQL and that can run thousands of simultaneous users reading/writing/editing a multi-terabyte drawing in an Oracle Spatial enterprise is hardly “low end.”

  This is easy for any reasonably intelligent person to determine for themselves by visiting the Manifold user manual at:

  http://www.manifold.net/doc/7x/manifold.htm

  The astute reader will immediately see from the manual that Manifold delivers far more in a single package than ESRI delivers in ArcGIS + ArcSDE + ArcIMS + ArcObjects + yet more miscellaneous dinosaur-ware. Manifold 7x is the world’s most complete, most sophisticated GIS ever, by a rather wide margin.

  Further, disrepect for Manifold is disrespect for the Manifold user community that has financed the development of the program and has guided its evolution. All that the development team at manifold.net has done is follow the wishes of GIS users worldwide for what they want. With over 1000 improvements per year during the last few years the relentless implementation of user wishlist items has resulted in something that is highly responsive to user demands. And sophisticated users want far more than what ESRI has been capable of providing.

  Many sophisticated users have become fed up with waiting for ESRI to implement the obvious and have taken their many years of GIS expertise into Manifold. The product is a reflection of that accumulated expertise, and the financial power of the company rests entirely upon their happiness. Without word of mouth support over many years, without support earned only by delivering what users demand, Manifold would not have been able to produce a steady stream of groundbreaking new releases with better engineering and much more sophisticated algorithms than ESRI.

  Combine that with the extraordinary financial bonanza of tapping mainstream computer markets and the millions of users they confer and… well, the result tends to eradicate small volume, high price, old-fashioned, poorly-managed and technically inept players like ESRI.

  And technically inept it is. For those of us who are aware of modern progress in software the sheer ineptness of ESRI software is striking. Setting aside obvious and flashy matters like near-zero leveraging of .NET, 64-bits and multiprocessing, there is virtually no detail of ESRI software that is not strikingly doltish and old fashioned.

  To take just one example, there is the appallingly backward nature of scripting in AML or Avenue that has only recently been replaced by the utterly dork circus of scripting in VBA. Real men don’t do that. They do as Manifold does, which allows users to script in whatever ActiveX language they like (VBscript, Javascript, PERL, Python, Ruby, etc.) or whatever .NET language they like (VB.NET, C#, whatever) or both. And Manifold even does syntax coloring for the various languages. Of course you don’t have to do scripting or programming in Manifold, but those who do program want to have a professional, quality development environment and not this low end VBA guff. It is just one of thousands of revealing details.

  Manifold Release 7x is the best there is. There is no finer GIS at any price and nothing, at any price, from ESRI comes even close. That for $395 Manifold’s Enterprise Edition does more than a $30,000 bundle of ESRI dinosaur-ware (ArcGIS, ArcSDE, ArcIMS, Arc Objects and a bunch of other “Arc”haic dolt-ware packages) is just the icing on the cake. The real merit to Manifold is that life is too short to waste on stupid, obsolete software, whether it is expensive or whether it benefits from mainstream economy of scale.

  Doubt that? Visit the Manifold user community at http://forum.manifold.net and see what the unmoderated user community has to say.

  The deal with Manifold is simple: extraordinarily complete and sophisticated software implemented using modern software technology at a level that makes ESRI stuff look like primitive junk and sold at one fortieth of the price. That’s a very simple concept that experienced GIS users find very appealing.

  As for the “manifold marketing department,” well, there isn’t any. I work for Manifold and there is no one there who pays any attention to marketing, except for the limited sense of product marketing, that is making sure user demands are represented within the engineering program. It is all engineering, hence the relentless progress of the software.

  Since this is an ESRI blog it seems inappropriate to continue a Manifold thread, nor is it likely I’ll ever find this URL again. If anyone would like to continue the discussion (flames, etc.), please feel free to contribute on the Manifold forum at http://forum.manifold.net. Or, if you prefer, do not hesitate to flame me directly at dar@manifold.net.

  Best regards to all,

  Dimitri

• 30 Matt Perry // Aug 25, 2006 at 11:24 pm

  SGD wrote:
  ————
  If you have to actually make money using GIS, ESRI is the only way to go…
  GRASS, uDig, etc are completely worthless in the real (non-academic, for profit) world. Good luck getting any type of paying job with that experience. In 11 years of consulting, I have never seen a potential client even utter the words “open source”.
  ———-

  I have to comment on this one. I’ve made a living developing GIS solutions for the last 5 years and the majority have been open source based projects. Truth is customers don’t care HOW you implement the solution.. they just want results.

  And, in my experience, open source delivers in many areas proprietary software can’t and vice-versa. It’s about using the best tool for the job, not about blind loyalty to a single vendor. Most people would never considering hiring anyone who had only a single tool at their disposal.

• 31 Digital Earth Weblog » Blog Archive » Manifold and Big Toys Syndrome // Aug 28, 2006 at 4:51 am

  [...] The recent spate of comments on James Fee’s weblog about Manifold has once again highlighted one of the ongoing afflictions of the GIS community. Nobody mentioned business value or ROI. It was all about the size of the toys. [...]

• 32 Jason Smith // Aug 28, 2006 at 7:17 pm

  Another hear-hear for Manifold. We use GIS to support environmental planning/development projects. If we had to rely on ESRI, we would have to outsource our GIS. However - since Manifold is not only robust, but also extremely easy to learn (and I have delved into the ESRI nightmare), we can train even our interns to produce deliverable products.

  Without a doubt, Manifold has the BEST GUI in the business.

• 33 Amore // Dec 7, 2006 at 1:20 pm

  Luogo interessante, buon disegno, lo gradisco, signore! =)

• 34 Manifold? Never heard of it. at James Fee GIS Blog // Dec 12, 2006 at 4:52 pm

  [...] OK, well I have heard of it. Still I’ve never run across it in my professional experience. Guess that makes me less than serious about GIS. *shrug* [...]

• 35 Digiy // Feb 11, 2007 at 8:09 pm

  There is no one in my company pays any attention to marketing, except for the limited sense of product marketing, that is making sure user demands are represented within the engineering program.

• 36 Willem Steenis // Apr 3, 2007 at 2:00 pm

  Hi GIS’sers,
  Interesting discussion! As a company I advise nearly always to stick to COTS for advanced GIS functionality. Opensource GIS can’t compete with the COTS industry. Take for example ESRI’s new line 9.2. It is possible to run your toolboxes in ArcSDE on the server, with your data on it as well. So no more network overloads for large raster analysis or large conversion projects. Where is the opensource GIS answer for this? I guess we can wait a while…. But on the other hand, if you don’t have a large budget… and if you are a handyman in case of programming and tuning… than opensource can be an option! When you need some tooling and no large oversized software package, then opensource can offer oppertunities as well. (gdal for example).
  Willem

• 37 Maciek // Jun 6, 2007 at 2:32 pm

  Willem Steenis wrote:

  —
  Take for example ESRI’s new line 9.2. It is possible to run your toolboxes in ArcSDE on the server, with your data on it as well. So no more network overloads for large raster analysis or large conversion projects. Where is the opensource GIS answer for this?
  —

  NX?

  Server: GNU/Linux + FOSS GIS tools + NX + GIS data.

  I login from my desktop machine (either Windows or GNU/Linux) onto the serwer. Do my job with QGIS, GRASS, GDAL and friends on the server - no extra network traffic. In the end I output the result (GIS data, images, maps etc.) into a Samba share on the server, so that I other staff members can read them from our desktop machines.

  With NX, I can even do all that from home.

  Not too bad?

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