[QGIS Commit] r10097 - trunk/articles/2009/geoinformatics

[svn_qgis at osgeo.org]

Author: gsherman
Date: 2009-02-02 21:56:54 -0500 (Mon, 02 Feb 2009)
New Revision: 10097

Modified:
   trunk/articles/2009/geoinformatics/article.tex
Log:
Added perspective/conclusion, hopefully not to heavy on the
marketing...


Modified: trunk/articles/2009/geoinformatics/article.tex
===================================================================
--- trunk/articles/2009/geoinformatics/article.tex	2009-02-03 01:11:43 UTC (rev 10096)
+++ trunk/articles/2009/geoinformatics/article.tex	2009-02-03 02:56:54 UTC (rev 10097)
@@ -250,19 +250,43 @@
 be freely copied and passed around after it is downloaded it is difficult to 
 judge useage numbers. With around 1550 registered users on our community map 
 we can extrapolate a user base in excess of 15000 given a conservative 
-estimate of a 1% sign up rate.
+estimate of a 1\% sign up rate.
 
 Professional support is provided by several companies.
 
 \subsection{Perspective / Conclusion}
 
+Quantum GIS began as a one-developer application that was met with skepticism
+by many asking ``Why another open source GIS?''. Although the initial goals
+were modest, QGIS has become a mature and extensible tool for viewing,
+editing, and performing GIS analysis. Creating a feature-complete GIS from
+scratch is a tremendous undertaking and at the outset was not really a goal of
+the project. With the GRASS integration and the extensibility possible through
+plugins, QGIS is positioned to grow into an even more robust toolset for the
+GIS user. 
+
+Early in life, the QGIS community was small and grew quite slowly.
+With the addition of several key developers, the features and capabilities
+expanded rapidly and with it, the community. QGIS now has an established
+community providing peer support, testing, and new features via plugins. 
+
+At version 1.0, QGIS provides a rich, stable API from which developers can
+create custom solutions in Python or C++. As the project moves forward, 
+there are many exciting developments underway in both the core application and
+plugins. 
+
+While it took nearly 7 years to get to version 1.0, the process is a
+testimony to the power of open source in bringing the talents and ideas of
+many individuals together to create a tool used by thousands in academia,
+government, and private industry around the world.
+
 \minisec{Authors}
 
 The authors of this article are the QGIS Project Steering Committee Members:
 
 Otto Dassau <dassau at nature-consult.de>: Otto lives in Hannover, Germany. His
 background is Open Source GIS and applied remote sensing. 
-\\Gary Sherman <sherman at mrcc.com>
+\\Gary Sherman <gsherman at mrcc.com>: Gary lives and works in Alaska and been torturing computers and programming languages well over two decades. In 2002 he founded the Quantum GIS project. 
 \\Tim Sutton <tim at linfiniti.com>: Tim runs a consultancy business in Gauteng,
 South africa where he provides commercial support and development services for
 QGIS and other FOSS GIS software.