[Gvsig_english] FEEDBACK gvSIG 1.9 (BN 1253) -- use of gvSIG in production environment

[silvio grosso]

Hi Simon,

First of all, THANKS a lot for all your testing on gvSIG 1.9.
The gvSIG's International mailing list, lately, has been really busy ;-)

>   5. In comparison to the pseudo standard - ArcView 3 - gvSIG is
comparable or excels in its functionality.

I totally agree :-)

> combined with Sextante, gvSIG did 95% of what I needed and a whole bunch more

About Sextante I have read, in the Sextante's international mailing list, that there are plans, for the future, to port the Sextante's modules to ArcGIS.
At present, though, there are others much more important priorities.
This plan is certainly useful because it will increase Sextante importance. 
On top of that, Sextante will have much more testing thanks to ArcGIS' users.
Even Sextante financial sponsorship might increase.
On the other hand, in my opinion, maybe, it could be "negative" for gvSIG widespread...

> So if you plan to use gvSIG is commercial   environments  where users are unskilled I suggest detailed > tutorial   be  developed and some training programs considered.

I think this is the real "problem" about gvSIG 1.9
All documentation for the 1.9 version is in Spanish.
Naturally, this is not the best for users who don't speak that language.

About tutorials, they might be produced by gvSIG's users.
Maybe, this is not always the best option because you are never sure about the quickness of this work.
Writing good documentation is not so easy and it is really a time-consuming work.
All volunteers should work, for free, in their spare time...
On top of that, in my opinion, It is difficult to get comprehensive tutorials from volunteers...
At present, gvSIG 1.9 is much too powerful. You should have dozens of volunteers :-)
Probably, volunteers are  more suited for translating the Spanish strings in the gvSIG's 1.9 GUI.This is quicker :-)

Even videos tutorials might be really, really useful.
But the first question is, what about the gvSIG's GUI to use for recording them? 
Spanish or English, just to name two?
Kosmo's webpage allows to watch many videos (see: http://www.opengis.es/index.php?option=com_weblinks&catid=24&Itemid=58)
In my opinion Kosmo's videos are really nice and they are a good start for beginners.

In my opinion, the real gap, concerning documentation, regards Sextante. 
For gvSIG, all in all, there is a lot of documentation and videos tutorials already available.
This is especially true for the 1.1.2 version.

I am sure there are many users who are willing to pay for having tutorials and videos available.
Even though, gvSIG is an open-source project, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong in "forcing" the users to pay for such documentation.
For example, having a book as "Getting to know ArcGIS desktop"  would be a must for gvSIG.

Maybe, gvSIG's developers could write such a book in English and make it available only for those disposed to pay for it.
It goes without saying that an English native speaker would be the best option. 
I do hope, sometime in the future, a gvSIG power-user will write such a book in order to sell it (e.g. on Amazon).

For Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/) , after a lot of discussions, its developers decided to write the manual for the 1.3.3.x version.
Naturally, there is also a lot of documentation available for free.
But this manual is only available by paying for it.
This, in order to finance the project (see http://www.scribus.net/?q=node/166).

Best regards,

Silvio