Comment This is good stuff (Score 5, Informative) 189
Outside of the end-user type applications (ESRI's ArcGIS and co.), open source in GIS is quite widespread.
Refractions Research maintains the PostGIS module for PostgreSQL, and while it is not yet complete (fix the ACROSS function guys!) it certainly makes the wrangling of data much easier as it implements the OpenGIS SQL specification.
Compare this to the old days of a dozen different formats which weren't convertable, it's much nicer with GML (Geographic Markup Language) and standard representations of geographic features made possible by the find folks involved in the OpenGIS consortium.
Props to the team at the University of Minnesota for MapServer, it's made my life a whole lot easier.
Refractions Research maintains the PostGIS module for PostgreSQL, and while it is not yet complete (fix the ACROSS function guys!) it certainly makes the wrangling of data much easier as it implements the OpenGIS SQL specification.
Compare this to the old days of a dozen different formats which weren't convertable, it's much nicer with GML (Geographic Markup Language) and standard representations of geographic features made possible by the find folks involved in the OpenGIS consortium.
Props to the team at the University of Minnesota for MapServer, it's made my life a whole lot easier.
