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The educational world needs to stop supporting them.

dvisca 4y ago
But it's the other way around. Esri offers so much in the education sector apart from software licenses in a complete package, which you unfortunately have to search for in the FOSS sector.
nwallin 4y ago
The business world needs to stop supporting Microsoft Office. The creative world needs to stop supporting Adobe Photoshop. The industrial design world needs to stop supporting Solidworks/AutoCAD. Everyone needs to stop supporting Microsoft Windows/Apple OSX. etc. I've been telling people for years they should be using GIMP and Linux but nobody cares. At least Oracle's stranglehold seems to be weakening.
- heliodor 4y ago
  Have GIMP developers ever discussed usability? Because it sure doesn't show! The alternative to Photoshop is that I gave $40 to Pixelmator and now I have an awesome photo editor that does plenty.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Try Krita - FOSS, excellent UI.
gonzo41 4y ago
You can add matlab to that list.
2devnull 4y ago
Yes, that is the apex of their human capital Ponzi scheme. But, you’d have to wait until the current profs who only know esri retire. Or until they put in the effort to learn how to use foss tools. The only motivation they might have, is a strong belief in foss or pressure from students who know esri is a trap.
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  That’s not a very good take. Esri is not a Ponzi scheme in any way. There isn’t an alternative for serious GIS. QGIS is a good open source tool but it is nowhere near esri.
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    As a systems engineer who was hired explicitly for a massive migration from 2 disparate ArcGIS Enterprise environments to an AWS one... Yeah, there's a massive amount of essential features just missing from OSM and QGIS. Like, even the most basic - layers. They don't even really exist in OSM side of things. Whereas if I'm doing travel-time-bands from medical centers, I absolutely must use multiple boundary layers. Then again, I'm an engineer, not a data scientist. My colleagues (all data scientists) do all sorts of crazy awesome work. Again, unless you're hacking R/python code and piecemeal it together, you're using ArcGIS. Then again, "ArcGIS Notebook" is a dockerized Jupiter system for doing just that in ArcGIS enterprise. edit: As for me personally, since I'm working in geoinformatics, I've been teaching myself the hows and whats. Im pretty proficient at both ArcGIS and QGis, as I'm trying to learn them side by side. If I am doing my own projects, I will use QGis. That's not even a discussion. I'm not about to use proprietary systems to lock up my data.
    - sohnakukkar 4y ago
      Can you elaborate why layers are needed in travel time band type analysis?
      - tarotuser 4y ago
        No, because any further details would highlight where I work and specifically what office. Lets just say the data intersection of: density and geocoding of users, density and location of office sites, travel time bands, and service level expectations all have a part in the final calculation. The data is either base layers imported, or calculated layers. There is no one "comprehensive layer" nor does that concept make sense. Different groups handle their own data. We import it in and use their data for our final result. (In fact, its the OSM approach of everything as 1 layer and tags everywhere is why a DB import and data handling is so obnoxious.)
dinkumthinkum 4y ago
What is the alternative for serious GIS? Why should they stop?

But it's the other way around. Esri offers so much in the education sector apart from software licenses in a complete package, which you unfortunately have to search for in the FOSS sector.

nwallin 4y ago

The business world needs to stop supporting Microsoft Office. The creative world needs to stop supporting Adobe Photoshop. The industrial design world needs to stop supporting Solidworks/AutoCAD. Everyone needs to stop supporting Microsoft Windows/Apple OSX. etc. I've been telling people for years they should be using GIMP and Linux but nobody cares. At least Oracle's stranglehold seems to be weakening.

heliodor 4y ago
Have GIMP developers ever discussed usability? Because it sure doesn't show! The alternative to Photoshop is that I gave $40 to Pixelmator and now I have an awesome photo editor that does plenty.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Try Krita - FOSS, excellent UI.

gonzo41 4y ago

You can add matlab to that list.

2devnull 4y ago

Yes, that is the apex of their human capital Ponzi scheme. But, you’d have to wait until the current profs who only know esri retire. Or until they put in the effort to learn how to use foss tools. The only motivation they might have, is a strong belief in foss or pressure from students who know esri is a trap.

dinkumthinkum 4y ago
That’s not a very good take. Esri is not a Ponzi scheme in any way. There isn’t an alternative for serious GIS. QGIS is a good open source tool but it is nowhere near esri.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  As a systems engineer who was hired explicitly for a massive migration from 2 disparate ArcGIS Enterprise environments to an AWS one... Yeah, there's a massive amount of essential features just missing from OSM and QGIS. Like, even the most basic - layers. They don't even really exist in OSM side of things. Whereas if I'm doing travel-time-bands from medical centers, I absolutely must use multiple boundary layers. Then again, I'm an engineer, not a data scientist. My colleagues (all data scientists) do all sorts of crazy awesome work. Again, unless you're hacking R/python code and piecemeal it together, you're using ArcGIS. Then again, "ArcGIS Notebook" is a dockerized Jupiter system for doing just that in ArcGIS enterprise. edit: As for me personally, since I'm working in geoinformatics, I've been teaching myself the hows and whats. Im pretty proficient at both ArcGIS and QGis, as I'm trying to learn them side by side. If I am doing my own projects, I will use QGis. That's not even a discussion. I'm not about to use proprietary systems to lock up my data.
  - sohnakukkar 4y ago
    Can you elaborate why layers are needed in travel time band type analysis?
    - tarotuser 4y ago
      No, because any further details would highlight where I work and specifically what office. Lets just say the data intersection of: density and geocoding of users, density and location of office sites, travel time bands, and service level expectations all have a part in the final calculation. The data is either base layers imported, or calculated layers. There is no one "comprehensive layer" nor does that concept make sense. Different groups handle their own data. We import it in and use their data for our final result. (In fact, its the OSM approach of everything as 1 layer and tags everywhere is why a DB import and data handling is so obnoxious.)

dinkumthinkum 4y ago

What is the alternative for serious GIS? Why should they stop?