Shapefiles Free or Buy

To any one who has some insight I would appreciate your thoughts on
the above. My boss wants me to find some shapefiles but not sure what
would be the best approach.


I see a lot of free shapefiles out there and also a ton of vendors
wanting to sell shapefiles. If I can get the data for free why would I
buy shapefiles?
What are the pros and cons to buying vs free?

I also see the pricing varies from $99 to thousands... what is up with
that?

thanks!

On Sat, 24 May 2008 05:42:46 -0700 (PDT), Lynn


tHE BEST APPROACH WOULD BE TO ASK HIM, THEN POST HERE, JUST WHAT THE
HECK HE WANTS SHAPE FILES OF (oops, sorry for caps lock).

Some of the best - and worst - data is free!

Looking for zip shape data. don't need the latest zips. my boss is
looking for a recommendation....not for me to ask him.

On Sun, 25 May 2008 15:37:25 -0700 (PDT), Lynn


Let's see if I understand this. Your boss wants data, but hasn't told
you for what. You are too dumb or scared to ask him. So you ask here
what it is your boss might want?

I'll give you a recommendation to pass to your boss.

Tell him to hire someone who isn't so clueless!

Happy Trails wrote:

Happy Trails has a point here... if you don't know what will be done
with the data, you can't tell which accuracy / attributes you will need!

just to illustrate... if you want to do a road map, you will not use the
same dataset for a map covering North America than for your home town.

For your case, if you want to plot, let's say, amount of sale per zip
code, then you don't really care if the point is perfectly located or a
few hundred meters off... but if you want to link it to a road network
and find driving direction, you will want much more accurate data!