[CoLoCo] Front Range Users of Geospatial Open Source?

[Jennifer Horsman]

I am a GIS user and second the opinion on ESRI products. It is really 
difficult to move away from such a great product once you have really 
learned how to use it. With GIS, the concepts are not that difficult to 
grasp, but learning to use the software is quite a hurdle. However, as a 
person who is interested in starting up a GIS contract-based business, 
the ESRI software is prohibitively expensive. For this reason, software 
like GRASS is very attractive. I have been thinking about trying to 
learn it in earnest and I think you may find there are people out there 
who feel the same - and are very interested in Linux. Obviously, any of 
the members of FRUGOS are interested in open source GIS and Unix/Linux 
is the best choice for running these products on.

I have worked for the government too and 10 years ago, the lab I worked 
for was using GRASS exclusively. Of course, it was originally developed 
by the US government!

Jennifer