had an inquiry from a comrade, and who has $700+ dollars for that shit
At the risk of being unhelpful and annoying, if there is any way to just use QGIS and open source Python packages that will pay dividends.
not annoying at all. I'll try and look into it. They weren't very specific about what the need was.
Hope that it works out, then! The open tools are much more flexible by nature. For example, just about any data transformation workflow you define in QGIS can be implemented as a Python script and then, if needed, be rewritten to not use QGIS at all, just the base tools it uses, and deploy your workflow to an environment that doesn't even have QGIS. Or you can take one underlying tool and apply them as needed to some other analysis without having to install all of QGIS.
No chance of doing what is needed in QGIS? If you could manage in QGIS you would at least not have to worry about avoiding potential malware or how to keep the program updated.
I just pirate it. Latest version isn't always available but I got mine from rutracker like a year ago.
Use QGIS for spacial analysis or maps. PostGIS for geodata. Geopandas for spacial analysis. GeoServer and Leaflet/Open Layers for Webmaps. No need to give Esri more money.
I don't know if they still have it, but they used to have $100 annual personal use license.