Lets make this simple. If you have experience with:

Python
PostgreSQL
PostGIS
GDAL/OGR
OpenLayers

and at least some knowledge of:
GeoJSON
FeatureServer
GML
KML
dealing with the above on Windows (Linux may come down the line)

and live in either Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, or New Mexico; email me

james.fee at gmail.com

Position can be contract or full time work.

just keeps getting easier and easier to get a fully functional open source GIS workstation up and running thanks to Ubuntu. The following instructions will take your vanilla installation of Ubuntu 7.10 and add the following top-notch desktop GIS applications:

Postgresql/PostGIS : a relational database with vector spatial data handling
GRASS : A full blown GIS analysis toolset
Quantum GIS: A user-friendly graphical GIS application
GDAL, Proj, Geos : Libraries and utilities for processing spatial data
Mapserver : web mapping program and utilites
Python bindings for QGIS, mapserver and GDAL
GPSBabel : for converting between various GPS formats
R : a high-end statistics package with spatial capabilities
GMT : the Generic Mapping Tools for automated high-quality map output

Download Ubuntu, install, run a simple command, enjoy GIS for free. Seems like a great solution to me!

Look how fun OSGeo is!

Anyway I was hanging out at Duke’s Waikiki and randomly started talking to the group next to me at the bar. Turns out that they are all readers of my blog and have been migrating their GIS from an ESRI only shop to a combination ESRI/open source shop. It was interesting to hear how they were picking and choosing the best products from ESRI and open source to help them better get their work done. What was also interesting is that they didn’t decrease their maintenance costs, but reallocated. They’ve replaced most of their ArcView seats with QGIS, replaced all but one license of ArcSDE with PostGIS and in turn used those savings to buy more licenses of ArcInfo and extensions. They’ve been able to give their high end GIS analysts the tools they feel that they need to get their work done, but still increased their GIS production. Every person at their company has either an ArcInfo or QGIS license on their desk that they can connect to WMS services hosted by MapServer and PostGIS.

I wish I could have spent more time with them talking about this, but they were heading to China in the morning so they needed to get to bed. I liked how they were able to give better tools to everyone by prioritizing what they needed and picked the best tools for the job.

We are getting really close to the 0.9 release of QGIS so there isn’t a better time to get familiar with what is becoming the choice in open source desktop GIS (to be fair I like what I see in gvSIG as well).

QGIS 0.9 Splash Screen

It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.8.1. Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost (download here).

The release notes are here.

BTW, what is up with the new icon? Seems a little retro to me…

At present this is primarily a source release for those that want to build QGIS. Packages for most Linux distributions, Windows, and Mac OS X are being assembled and should be available in the next few days.

Keep an eye out on the QGIS 0.8 download page for the package releases (Windows, OS X, etc).

For those who have forgotten why QGIS 0.8 is an important milestone, here are a few of the new features:

• WMS support
• Improved vector and attribute editing
• Improved measure tools with area measuring
• Attribute searching
• New legend structure
• Refactoring of API to allow the use of QGIS libraries in mapping applications
• Improved MapServer export tool
• Vector layer transparency and antialiasing
• GRASS support in all platforms
• Enhanced GRASS support and toolbox commands
• Enhanced vector editing, including copy, cut, paste, snapping and vertex editing
• Shapefile/OGR layer editing

Some screen shots of the windows version:

click for larger view

The new era: QGIS and Python

You may have failed (or decided not to even try) to build a product for users and to attract users to that product, but that hardly qualifies you to hand down edicts about what open source is or isn’t about.

Read the whole post here.

Paul responds:

It is just straightforward observation that if you aren’t adding code, documentation, bug reports, or user support to a project, if you are just downloading and using the software, you are not adding any value to the project.

Actually, very true. See Gary Sherman’s post on diminished expectations. Just downloading uDig or QGIS and complaining that it isn’t ArcGIS helps no one. Open source GIS needs users to be involved by providing feedback to help grow the software. That said, you don’t have to do anything if you don’t wish, but complaining about the software without helping the developers doesn’t help anyone.

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.

Oh and it looks like they updated their webpage too.

This is something we’ll definitely have to talk about at the Developer Summit for sure.

After playing around a bit with 1.0.0a7 (windows release)
I found I could get it to work by doing the following:

- Edit the setfw and openev batch files so that instead of a hard coded path, the home directory is set using %cd%
to supply the current directory

- Copying the shortcuts into the fwtools directory and removing the absolute paths from them (the OpenEV icon gets lost, but that isn’t fatal).

I’ve tried it and its works fairly well. It looks like Robert’s gotten some responses on the FWTools mailing list so maybe we’ll see an updated version that takes advantage of the portability. Many developers have run with this idea of portability and given the larger USB 2.0 flash drives out there, why not? Maybe someone can set up a wiki somewhere to list the instructions for various open source programs to run on portable devices.