[wellylug] Arcview/Linux GIS

[Wood Brent]

--- Peter Dawson <peter_dawson at eagle.co.nz> wrote:
> Hello there!
> 	I work for the local distributor for the ArcView product, and have made some
> enquiries....
> 	The only way you can view it for free is to get the originator of the map to
> "publish it" as a .PMF file which can then be viewed with a JAVA viewer
> called ArcExplorer available as a free download from www.esri.com .
> Presumably you will then be able to cut & paste it (but I can't confirm that)
> 	Apparently the next version (due next year) of the ESRI software will
> include a Linux version, but I guess that is too far away for right now, and
> anyway it will be a charged product at the same prices as the current Windows
> & Unix versions. HTH

I've always thought of ESRI as the Micro$oft of the GIS world. There are
already some commercial GIS products for Linux, for example. Genamap has moved
to Linux as it's primary platform, & TNT MIPS has both a commercial & free
version for Linux.

If I remember correctly, Arc used to have UNIX support but lost interest & only
supported Windows for the last few years. Is the Linux version going to include
ArcView, or just the higher end & server packages??

As faar as Open Source goes, GRASS is the most mature, but still a long way to
go, & then there are new kids on the block like QGIS. For drawing maps, GMT is
very effective, but you want something else to manage data. Fortunately
Postgres has supported spatial datatypes & queries for years, & with PostGIS
maturing nicely & MySQL introducing similar functionality, it is quite feasible
to build a very effective GIS workstation using only OpenSource software.

Cheers,

  Brent Wood