Why we like Quantum GIS

cavallini@faunalia.it +39-348-3801953 http://www.faunalia.it Paolo Cavallini

QGIS: what is it?

• A free and open source desktop GIS
• A fully featured WebGIS server (WMS, WFS)
• Two WebGIS client interfaces (http://gis.uster.ch/ http://demo.3liz.com/lizmap/)
• A mobile application (Android)
• A set of libraries for the development of geospatial applications
  • e.g. QMap

QGIS: not only software

• A large community (>300.000) of
  • developers
  • users
  • manual writers
  • translators
  • graphic designers

QGIS: what is it?

• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) registered software
• OSGeo project
• Based on the QT/C++ toolkit
  • easy and fast development
• Non-Java based
  • can be used on remote terminals
  • independent from the choices of a single enterprise (Sun => Oracle)

Important features

• Extensible through Python
  • development, installation and upgrades are very fast
  • low development costs
• Based on the best GFOSS applications and libraries

Read and write

• Plenty of data and services supported
  • Vector: Shapefile, MapInfo, PostGIS, SpatiaLite, KML, GML, DXF, CSV, and many more
  • Raster: TIFF, JPEG, Arc/Info ASCII grid, ASCII Gridded XYZ, and many more
  • Web: WMS, WFS, WFS-T, WCS, WPS, CSW etc.
  • OpenLayers [OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Bing Maps, etc.]

Release early, release often

Going strong

Going strong

Bugfixing

• Often in a few hours
• Fixed version available
  • immediately to GNU users, through compilation
  • next day to all non-compilers (Windows, OSX)
• Python plugins
  • automatic updates
  • at each QGIS startup
• Only free software can do that

User participation

• Users help building a better QGIS
  • user needs and examples (through the mailing list)
  • feature requests and bug finding
  • donations
  • case studies
  • translations, manuals, training material

Hackfests

• 1° Hannover March 2009
• 2° Vienna November 2009
• 3° Pisa March 2010
• 4° Wroclaw November 2010
• 5° Lisboa April 2011
• 6° Zurich November 2011
• 7° Lyon April 2012
• 8° Essen October 2012

New features (1.8)

• Data browser
• DB Manager
• New symbols
• Project nesting
• Message log
• Customization
• New analysis framework (SEXTANTE)

New features (1.8)

• Direct actions
• Scale selector
• New plugin infrastructure
• Legend-independent drawing order
• Terrain analysis
• Heathmap
• Expression based labelling
• much more

Near future

• WCS client
• Raster: Save as...
• New colour ramps (raster + vector)
• New symbology
• New web client, with authentication
• Power Python console
• New diagrams
• more every day, stay tuned!

Our future

... is definitely the time for meritocracy: the people who are going to do the work or fund the work can choose what will go into 2.0 ...

Tim Sutton, Quantum GIS release manager

QGIS is nice

So, why do we like it?

• Democratic decision making
  • «democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried» Winston Churchill
  • anybody (accepted by development team) can contribute code
  • anybody can contribute plugins
• Results
  • development very efficient and cheap
  • power to users

No dictatorship

• No single owner
  • nobody can force the directions and priorities of development
  • development directly follows user needs and developer interests

100% free code

• Code review
• No “hidden code”
  • complete legal peace of mind
  • now and in the future

In QGIS, every user counts

Happy free mapping!

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