Will ESRI support the PostGIS open-source spatial extension for PostgreSQL?So they'll support the standard type or that PostGIS thingymabob. Of course, PostGIS is also an ISO/OGC spatial type, but somehow that fact is a little submerged in the phraseology.
Yes, ESRI will provide our customers with the option of using either the ISO/OGC spatial type or the PostGIS spatial extension.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Ow, That Stings!
There's a certain backhanded snarkiness to the ESRI UC Q&A item on PostGIS:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Don't you think you're a little bit harsh towards the ESRI's and oracle's (previous post) of this world? I used to enjoy your posts, but with such cynicism I am not so sure anymore...
Oh, ESRI probably does not mean anything by choosing that particular wording, but on the other hand, they did not choose they more direct "We'll support both our own ST_GEOMETRY type and also the PostGIS type." I don't think my previous post is overly harsh at all – charging based on processor usage metrics puts absolutely the wrong incentive on the vendor. Whether they act on that incentive is a separate question.
Paul, do you need a hug?
Nah, save that for ESRI. They'll need it.
I always need a hug, James, I'm a hugaholic.
@niels -- my cynicism lies elsewhere. I think tech person told sales/marketing person, "Of course, we support X -- it belongs to class Y, " so marketing/sales person says, "We support X & Y."
Hmm people never get satisfied. First they bitch about the lack of PostGreSQL support, then the lack of PostGIS support and now the lack of mentioning one datatype before the other.
Can't you all just be glad that you can now save a lot of money and use PostGIS? And (as I understand it) if you already have SDE and want to migrate to PostGreSQL that is also easy, because there's an extension that makes that even more transparent to the client software the can reuse the same APIs on PostGreSQL as on the DB they migrated from?
I think it's a fair point to raise, given the emergent standards and commoditization of spatial databases... Best that ESRI be on the ball and support these rather than stand on the sidelines and be left out while other backend database solutions rush forward.
From the tens-of-thousands-of-dollars solutions to the open source variety...
Post a Comment