The New Federal Source Code Policy
The White House released a draft policy yesterday for sharing source code among federal agencies, including a pilot program that will make portions of federal code open source.
This policy will require new software developed specifically for or by the Federal Government to be made available for sharing and re-use across Federal agencies. It also includes a pilot program that will result in a portion of that new federally-funded custom code being released to the public.
The policy outlined here highlights a draft policy proposal of a pilot program requiring covered agencies to release at least 20 percent of their newly-developed custom code, in addition to the release of all custom code developed by Federal employees at covered agencies as part of their official duties, subject to certain exceptions as noted in the main body of the policy.
Many Federal GIS consultants just had a bad morning.
ArcGIS Pro Licensing — Enabling
So last week I was talking about how to now use ArcGIS Pro with “Classic Licensing”. Well after following the directions on Esri’s website which resulted in no new licenses we finally realized that despite what Esri says on their support page. The original suggestion was just use the ArcGIS Desktop license for Pro 1.2. What you actually need to do is find your ArcGIS Pro 1.2 license in My Esri and use that. Make sense when you think about it but the directions from Esri before was just use your ArcGIS Desktop.
The disconnect was that you get ArcGIS Pro license code with your ArcGIS Desktop license. You just need to run the licensing wizard and then point your ArcGIS Pro to that license server. Then it works without an issue.
ArcGIS Pro Licensing — Enabling
So last week I was talking about how to now use ArcGIS Pro with “Classic Licensing”. Well after following the directions on Esri’s website which resulted in no new licenses we finally realized that despite what Esri says on their support page. The original suggestion was just use the ArcGIS Desktop license for Pro 1.2. What you actually need to do is find your ArcGIS Pro 1.2 license in My Esri and use that. Make sense when you think about it but the directions from Esri before was just use your ArcGIS Desktop.
The disconnect was that you get ArcGIS Pro license code with your ArcGIS Desktop license. You just need to run the licensing wizard and then point your ArcGIS Pro to that license server. Then it works without an issue.
ArcGIS Pro Licensing — The Old Way
ArcGIS Pro has always had somewhat of a non-standard way of being licensed. I’ve never really gotten into it mostly because it revolves around “provisioning” and “logging in” to ArcGIS Online. Even if I felt a real need to get it to work, it just seems like a very annoying method of licensing software. Now since technically we aren’t paying for ArcGIS Pro licenses just yet, I suppose it doesn’t really matter1. But as I do want to at least get an idea of what Pro is, how it works and what it means to GIS workflows when/if it replaces ArcGIS for Desktop, licensing matters. I’ve not been to an Esri conference in almost a year so the ins and outs of Pro licensing have been lost on me but this tidbit yesterday about ArcGIS Pro moving forward was interesting.
@AlexMahrou @cageyjames @williamscraigm ...and 1.2 will let you use concurrent licensing.
— Jeremy Wright (@inertcatnip) March 1, 2016
So there you go, I’m guessing this means when 1.2 arrives this week, I can just point it at my existing license manager and away we go. I’ll install ArcGIS Pro, be impressed with the new UI and then realize it’s a dog and buggy as sin2. But 64-bit is a big carrot so depending on how the geoprocessing works, I can see myself embracing Pro, Python 3.x and 64-bit.
From the “What’s New in ArcGIS Pro 1.2”:
Before the 1.2 release, the only licensing option available for ArcGIS Pro was through Named User licensing. This license model required authorization through your organization administrator on Portal for ArcGIS or ArcGIS Online. At 1.2, you now have two new licensing models available that don’t require you to go through a Portal for ArcGIS or an ArcGIS Online organization: Single Use and Concurrent licensing. With a Single Use license, ArcGIS Pro points to a file for authorization. The file is stored on the same machine that runs ArcGIS Pro. With Concurrent licensing, a given number of licenses are hosted on a License Manager (the ArcGIS License Server Administrator). ArcGIS Pro is then configured to allow organization members to check out an available license from the pool of licences hosted on the License Manager.
While I did spend a lot of time photoshopping the splash screen above, here is the ArcGIS Pro 1.2 splash screen.
ArcGIS Pro Licensing — The Old Way
ArcGIS Pro has always had somewhat of a non-standard way of being licensed. I’ve never really gotten into it mostly because it revolves around “provisioning” and “logging in” to ArcGIS Online. Even if I felt a real need to get it to work, it just seems like a very annoying method of licensing software. Now since technically we aren’t paying for ArcGIS Pro licenses just yet, I suppose it doesn’t really matter1. But as I do want to at least get an idea of what Pro is, how it works and what it means to GIS workflows when/if it replaces ArcGIS for Desktop, licensing matters. I’ve not been to an Esri conference in almost a year so the ins and outs of Pro licensing have been lost on me but this tidbit yesterday about ArcGIS Pro moving forward was interesting.
@AlexMahrou @cageyjames @williamscraigm ...and 1.2 will let you use concurrent licensing.
— Jeremy Wright (@inertcatnip) March 1, 2016
So there you go, I’m guessing this means when 1.2 arrives this week, I can just point it at my existing license manager and away we go. I’ll install ArcGIS Pro, be impressed with the new UI and then realize it’s a dog and buggy as sin2. But 64-bit is a big carrot so depending on how the geoprocessing works, I can see myself embracing Pro, Python 3.x and 64-bit.
From the “What’s New in ArcGIS Pro 1.2”:
Before the 1.2 release, the only licensing option available for ArcGIS Pro was through Named User licensing. This license model required authorization through your organization administrator on Portal for ArcGIS or ArcGIS Online. At 1.2, you now have two new licensing models available that don’t require you to go through a Portal for ArcGIS or an ArcGIS Online organization: Single Use and Concurrent licensing. With a Single Use license, ArcGIS Pro points to a file for authorization. The file is stored on the same machine that runs ArcGIS Pro. With Concurrent licensing, a given number of licenses are hosted on a License Manager (the ArcGIS License Server Administrator). ArcGIS Pro is then configured to allow organization members to check out an available license from the pool of licences hosted on the License Manager.
While I did spend a lot of time photoshopping the splash screen above, here is the ArcGIS Pro 1.2 splash screen.
Washington Crossing the Esri
Every year or so it seems like Esri gets written up in Forbes. Last week the following came out:
…long before Google was born–even before its founders were born–it was Dangermond who essentially invented the digital map. Esri , the company he founded with his wife, Laura, in 1969, has toiled in relative obscurity to become one of the more improbable powerhouses in tech, having survived wrenching shifts in computing that destroyed scores of its fellow tech pioneers.
Now before you think it is a puff piece like last years, think again. I was surprised in the honest assessment of Esri, Jack’s place in technology and the happiness of Esri employees. Working in the industry we do, we all know the place that Jack and Esri fit within the grow of GIS. The article focuses on Esri but I think it hits upon what everyone is doing, Esri itself, their business parters or those who avoid their software:
“There’s been an explosion of people who think of their research in geospatial terms,” says Julie Sweetkind-Singer, Stanford’s assistant director of Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data & Services.
There has been, it might make “Jack bullish” but it really is built upon the doers of GIS. Visionaries may point the ship in the right direction but those on the ground have turned GIS from a specialized-niche profession into something that is part of almost every workflow imaginable. Read the article, it think it is worth your time.