[udig-devel] questions about uDig 1.0

[Emilio Mayorga <emiliom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been watching this project for a while, browsing the list and 
scanning the Milestone reports. It looks very promising. I was going to 
download and install uDig today for the first time, to give it a spin, 
but the codehaus site seems to be down.

Together with a group of biologists in Nicaragua, we're putting together 
a project in "biodiversity informatics". It boils down to managing their 
biodiversity data, providing tools for analysis, and connecting them to 
global networks. I'm meeting with them and a likely funding source in 
three weeks. I'm the IT coordinator for this project. GIS is one 
component. I have to make a recommendation as to what GIS desktop 
software and other tools to use. As I see it, the choice will be between 
asking for ArcView (3.3 or 9) license donations from ESRI, or open 
source software (uDig, gvSIG, JUMP, QGIS, ...). I like what I see in 
uDig. So, I have a few questions about 1.0:

- What minimum hardware requirements do you anticipate? I know, that's a 
fuzzy question and you're not there yet. Can you guesstimate how it will 
compare with ArcMap 9.0?

- I understand you'll be delivering a French localization. Is there any 
talk of a Spanish one??

- Are there plans to allow customization/scripting via languages more 
accessible than Java? Say, Python.

I would like to be able to set up our project with open source software, 
but not at the expense of usability and ability to easily customize the 
software.

Thank you! Cheers,

Emilio Mayorga

PS. Hi Paul. We met in Victoria a year ago.