Slashgeo

There's been a lot of very interesting discussing regarding ArcGIS Server 9.2 lately. You can start with the ArcGIS Server Functionality Matrix [pdf] (via Spatially Adjusted) see also this previous story). Then it is worthed to read Dave Bouwman's entry on the fine print of ArcGIS Server licensing, also discussed by Spatially Adjusted. If ArcGIS Server is your daily tool, see the Manager Video about it. From Dave Bouwman's entry: "So - where are we. If you want to design a system the way you have it running today - you're looking a 3 times the base pricing for server - this will get you ArcSDE running as a service on a separate DBMS (assuming 2 sockets) and the web ADF running on it's own server (also 2 sockets). [...] Creating a tile cache is not magic that can only be done by ESRI. Brian Flood has implemented this in the next version of Arc2Earth (pro edition costs $299). Slap OpenLayers (free) in front of that, and you've got the same thing running for a tiny fraction of the cost."

In a followup to his previous entry on open source licenses and commercial applications, the import cartography has a short but interesting entry on proprietary development contributions to geospatial open source projects. The two hypothesis from the blog: "Proprietary benefit for open source GIS software is primarily a phenomenon of the GDAL project. [...] Proprietary benefit for open source GIS software goes almost exclusively to low-level projects."

The GDAL-Dev list indicated GDAL/OGR 1.4.1 has been released. From the announcement: " This is a "Stable Branch Release", which is something new for GDAL/OGR. That means it contains virtually no new features, but it does contain all important bug fixes since 1.4.0. It should be possible for anyone using GDAL/OGR 1.4.0 to upgrade to GDAL/OGR 1.4.1 with a minimum of concern of new bugs or disruptive changes." Here's the overview of changes. GDAL/OGR is arguably the most important geospatial open source software, being used by numerous open source geospatial projects and proprietary projects including Google and ESRI.

Spatially Adjusted links to an interesting discussion over the OSGeo-Discuss mailing list about open source careers and whether open source GIS software are up to par vs commercial GIS [Nabble link]. SA picks an insightful quote from Paul Ramsey, formerly of the Refractions fame: "My general synopsis: for server-side, for scriptability, for automation, for web-based, open source wins for most use cases, given a technically savvy user; for ad hoc, for cartographic production, for a user who is used to a point-n-click experience end to end, proprietary still wins."

Slashgeo regularly covers open source geospatial software. I copied some previous related stories below. With 52 North, the OSGeo and all the open source geospatial software such as the widely used GDAL, we can say open source geospatial software is in a healthy situation. Note that we also cover commercial geospatial software, including from ESRI. Editor's note: I usually read the OSGeo list myself and share interesting bits with our users, since I've been away from office, expect more thorough coverage after the summer. Meanwhile, there's always submissions.