Who Moved My Cheese?

I like Geoinformatics so much, cause besides being a magazine with a great layout appeal; the contents are very good in geospatial. Today has been announced the release of April, where I have taken some texts highlighted in red to motivate a luscious reading.

In earlier versions I did a summary for them, today I’ve taken as the post theme, a brief but thorough article about the existing change resistance in making the leap towards the open source technologies. It is based on the old story of the mouse that was on the verge of dying because its cheese was over and to find another source was against its principles. The mouse simply thought was: “somebody had moved my cheese“.

And very often, those who dare to mention words like “gpl”, “open source”, “free”, “gnu” or similar tend to be seen as aliens out of a space capsule with an eye on their foreheads. We are so accustomed to see the Windows logo that everything that does not run on this dinosaur, appears to be complicated; the statistics show this, people prefers Internet Explorer to Mozilla, for example. In this Geoinformatics’ edition they are still talking about open technologies, in this case, PostGIS and its ability to work with databases, which seems to be a good campaign, as it had been previously shown with gvSIG and Quantum GIS.

In recent years I’ve made tests using “unconventional” software such as Manifold, Microstation, gvSIG and IntelliCAD; results have been equal or even better, but this has caused people thinks I’m “complicated”. So I admit it, I tend to it; but it’s necessary to consider that in this life we must find innovation, provided it isn’t out of order (A Spanish idiom: “traído de los cabellos”). I like Eric Van Rees’ editorial insinuation: “what might Google Earth be thinking, perhaps in the depths.”

I am aware that the world of PCs to Linux won’t change in many years or perhaps ever, but open source technologies are topics very strongly heard in many countries and, unless new business models overcome major cyclical crises, time will prove us right. Otherwise, as a football coach said, we gain experience.

One of these days, people must understand that it’s not a good thing to use illegal versions (A Spanish idiom: “piratear”) of AutoCAD for our daily tasks, instead of this exists IntelliCAD with a much lower price or even QCad which has a symbolic value. Of course, if you have the money and the privilege, you must buy Autodesk software. It’s also necessary to understand that 300 municipalities can not afford an ArcGIS Server license for $ 35,000, not even all require one (or other extensions); but it’s possible to do the same (or more) with economic options such as Manifold, Global Mapper, gvSIG, QGis o Grass. I like James Fee remark that ironically says “Is access via ftp the best you can do?”

At last, perhaps it’s a waste of time and spittle to talk about it, but surely those who try new ways of doing the same using economic software options, gain the advantage of learning more by their own. I love Geoinformatics insistence, in this edition, for making a cult of self -intuition as a man necessity.

It’s in doubt that these technologies will become popular

… for now on

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Oh, by the way! Take a look at the magazine, which speaks of:

• The Trimble Juno SC
• How’s going GIS education in technical centers
• CityGML, a standard in the practical
• Best practices in GIS implementation, ESRI’s new publication
• GIS and GRID integration in disasters management