Its quite difficult getting information on exactly whats upcoming in 9.2 unless you are on the beta list so thanks for the headsup.

Public WFS examples are indeed hard to come by, but i could easily setup some test services for you guys to have a play. Otherwise, running the usual http://www.google.com/search?q=allinurl: service=wfs google search should give you some hits

I can advise that the most recent FME WFS reader does not pull down the entire dataset and only queries what is needed, so at least that part of your rant has been addressed.

The other thing is that in 9.2, the WFS reader is part of the core of ArcGIS install, and doesn’t need an interop license. More correctly, if people install the interop extension but don’t license it, they still get WFS reading (with the bounding box filter), as well as Simple Features Profile Level 0 GML reading and writing.

Lastly, if you can let us know (support AT safe.com) of some good sample WFS sites to test against, we’d very much appreciate that. One time at a trade show I asked a well known vendor of WFS servers for some suggestions of good sample sites we could use to test against and was told “why should I tell you that”. So we’re always interested in alternate ways of finding good WFS sites to test with.

Dale

The problem with the data interoperability extension is that it isn’t an ESRI product. I guess ESRI should have done this themselves, but they worked with Safe Software so I assume that they couldn’t include it without paying huge royalties in the first place.

I agree though, out of the box ArcGIS should at least support WMS, WFS, GML and KML.