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I’m an MSc GIS student in the final year of my studies. I’m researching for my dissertation project which is entitled ‘Can Quantum GIS replace Proprietary GIS in large organisations?’

I’m primarily seeking the views of GIS professionals/Managers who have taken the decision to replace Proprietary GIS (PGIS) with Open Source GIS OSGIS (Not necessarily Quantum GIS) or have decided to stick with PGIS. I’m also interested in the views of GIS users who have considered migrating to OSGIS. The main questions I have are as follows:

• Have you considered switching to OSGIS?

• Why did you decide to migrate to OSGIS or to retain PGIS?

• If you migrated to OSGIS what issues did you encounter? - Are you still encountering issues, if so what? - With your experience in mind, what are the pro’s and con’s of OSGIS - Has your GIS functionality/capability increased as a result of migrating to OSGIS?

• If you decided to retain PGIS, what was your reasoning behind this? - What were your concerns relating to OSGIS - With your experience in mind, what are the pro’s and con’s of PGIS - What improvements, if any, would make you consider migrating to OSGIS?

Feedback from all GIS users is most welcome. I have chosen not to produce a survey as I want the responses to be open ended, allowing users to add as little or as much feedback as they wish. I’m also hoping users will raise issues that I previously hadn’t encountered.

Thanks in advance.

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While waiting for answers, you may be interested in some of the questions answered under the "comparison" tag: gis.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/comparison – GIS-Jonathan Oct 24 '12 at 11:03
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@Andrew Perhaps some quick online survey might be a better form of reaching people than email. GIS-UK@JISCMAIL.AC.UK mailing list might be another good place to ask. Last but not least - please share your results once you get them - I think it's a topic of interest for many of us here! =) – radek Oct 24 '12 at 11:09
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As much as I applaud the nature of your thesis, I think it is outside the scope of questions which are encouraged here and described in the FAQ – PolyGeo Oct 24 '12 at 11:38

closed as not constructive by PolyGeo, underdark♦ Oct 24 '12 at 12:40

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