GIS Development: August 2007:Open Source Tools for GIS Professionals

Page 2 of 2
Previous

Open Source Tools for GIS Professionals

gvSIG integrates easily with SDIs by connecting to standard Map, Feature and Coverage (raster) web services (see Fig. 2), as well as Catalogue and Gazetteer search services through different protocols, but also to proprietary ArcIMS services. It can overlay those remote data with local information from files or spatial databases like Post- GIS and Oracle. In addition, it includes a CAD-like editing environment, vector geoprocessing functions and the SEXTANTE raster analysis tools. This means that in its current release gvSIG already goes beyond what is provided by the basic license (already expensive) of most proprietary GIS software. We find that GIS users are usually quite surprised to see that gvSIG is available for free without restrictions, via a GPL license.

Fig. 2: gvSIG OSS desktop GIS showing data from WMS, WFS and WCS web services

gvSIG is also a platform on which many companies and institutions provide education and training, and develop targeted applications for schools, land, infrastructure, forestry and water management, health administration, geomarketing, etc. Fig. 3 shows just one example: a coastal management system combining an SDI architecture with a customized gvSIG client.

Fig. 3: A coastal management system built on an OSS SDI with gvSIG as client

Fig 4: Multiple-stop route planning with gvSIG’s network analysis extension

OSS GIS, FROM EUROPE
OSS GIS Projects like Deegree, Mapbender or gvSIG are mainly developed in Europe but, as typical OSS projects, have the vocation to be used and to receive development contributions from anywhere in the world. European international aid programmes are This process feeds itself in a kind of snowball effect, in which successful projects are used as reference and as template for new ones.

now implicitly, sometimes explicitly, favouring the use of OSS, given that Open Source GIS has much to offer to developing regions:

It provides better sustainability, since there are no maintenance fees and as an open system it can be upgraded and modified by anybody.
It allows for the replication of the tools as much as needed. There is no limit in the number of users, imposed by license costs.
The economic resources liberated by the non-existence of license cost can be diverted to promote local GIS knowhow and to perform capacity building.
It offers a more comprehensive and fruitful technology transfer, since local users and developers can truly make the technology their own and adapt it for their needs.

In fact, OSS GIS is already widely used in developing countries for education and non-profit projects, but other uses are quickly emerging as local public and private institutions become aware of the potential.

A common question from many users evaluating the adoption of OSS systems is about the availability and quality of training and support.

There has been a huge progress in this area within the OSS world, as these products not only continue to have vibrant user and developer communities which offer fast and flexible support for free, but there is also a growing network of companies that make their business of providing the same quality technical support and training programmes they offer for proprietary software. OSS GIS is no longer a matter of university projects. It has definitively become serious business, even if it follows a different, more open, model.

In the end, we believe that in many situations OSS GIS is today a viable alternative to proprietary systems. It can also integrate successfully with proprietary software as long as the latter uses open standards, so these are not two mutually excluding worlds. As with any software, its features, cost benefits and availability of training and support must be weighted when making a decision to adopt it.