| Abstract: |
Software licensing issues and software costs increasingly become a struggle for GIS organizations trying to provide the greatest amount of service for the lowest cost. The open source software movement has created a wealth of software that is free of licensing restrictions, and free to acquire. This workshop will review a wide range of open source GIS tools, discussing their strengths and weaknesses and showing examples. MapServer is a widely-used open source web mapping platform, with many offshoots which allow you to easily set up inexpensive web mapping. PostgreSQL and PostGIS are components of a completely open-source spatial database. We will also look at desktop tools including Quantum GIS and gvSIG. Live demos will be shown, with plenty of time for questions/answers and audience participation. |