Hi,
GIS is one of the promising applications for geospatical data analysis. If properly used it can create a good impact in our planning process and decision making.
In India, several institutes have tried to use GIS software for their work. They have mostly used proprierity software. Developing countries like india cannot afford proprietary software especially for such purposes. Because of the very high cost of the software, we cannot even think about using the power of GIS for local level applications like decentralised planning.
The biggest tragedy of using proprietary software is in the education sector. The commonly used GIS applications are not affordable for our students and educational institutes. As a result, we don't have sufficient trained man power in GIS.
At the same time, a number of free software packages are available for the same purpose. Many of them are equal or better in quality when compared to their proprietary counterparts. One such package, GRASS (Geographical Resource Analysis Support System) has been around for several decades and is one of the most powerful GIS packages. Good documentation is available, and the GRASS community offers good help through its discussion groups. (A good news- IISc Banglore, has a mirror site for GRASS). Thuban is one of the best GIS viewers and Mapserver is the best webmapping tool available. A number of applications like geotools, qgis, gpsman, ossim etc. are also available as Free Software.
We need to spread the news that all this software does exist and need to help our people to use them. We also need to contribute back to the community, as far as we can.
For all this, we need a place to discuss the issues we face, and to find solutions together. Free-gis@iitcgpk.org is meant for this. Please join the list if you are interested in using GIS applications and spreading the word of freedom. Please go to http://iitcgpk.org/mailman/listinfo/free-gis_iitcgpk.org to join the list.