[GRASS5] A request for control

[B. Byars]

Hi all,

Well, I was waiting for something like this.  First off, I have to say
thank you to all the developers out there who work so hard on
keeping things moving forward.  This community has grown
tremendously in the past year.

Now a brief history lesson on GRASS 5.0.  Markus and I agreed a
while back that there was the need for I guess what you would call
"project managers" for each new version of GRASS.  This is necessary
for the following reasons.  Each version is slightly different and there are
support issues with each.  We agreed that 4.x would be our focus for
support, Markus and I were both working on 5 code but we felt that
since at the time he had a bit more time that we did, he would take the
lead for 5.  (why that negative post?)  We here at Baylor have since
been working on what will be GRASS 6.0 (real prelim stuff now),
experimenting with certain things.  See how this was working?

Our staff provides a tremendous amount of personalized support for the
community, which we estimate has grown to 35-40k users (support can
go upwards of 60-75 email per day).  We've been watching how things
have been evolving and are very pleased with the response from users.

However, I agree with Rich in that lately GRASS has become more of
a hackers tool than a useful GIS in some respects.  Thus, I agree with an
immediate feature freeze.

We here work with commercial firms in some of our projects and I've
seen what happens to good products when too much is done to them.
Simple is better.  Has anyone seen Corel Draw 9?  It's so big and does
so much that it's unmanagable for everyday users.  That is not what we
want in GRASS.  CERL once posted a "timeline" for GRASS development
and at the end it was "implementation in every home".  :-)  The original team
had the vision of keeping things functional, a model which we have tried to
stick with.

I am willing (not excluding Markus) to start sheparding things along.  We've
had a vision statement that I will also post.  I think that user feedback is
extremely important and want to keep a positive dialogue.  However, in my
past life experiences (away from academia) I can say that democracy does
not work when it comes to getting things done.  Markus, email me with your
thoughts.

Now, to address what I know will come up.  Just because you don't see us
everyday does not mean we aren't here.  Our entire staff is only an email
away (Lisa and I are the focal points though).  Points about how we are not
involved are TOTALLY WITHOUT MERIT.  And publishing flaming
comments to that end are not constructive and unprofessional.  We are part
of a laboratory that does much more than just GRASS work and to be honest
don't have the luxury of working each and every day on GRASS issues other
than support, which we have made a priority.  If things move too slowly for
someone, I'm sorry.  We've got to keep the lights on and food on the table.

Thus endeth my points.  If anyone would like to discuss things with me, let
me know either by email or call me at 254-710-6814.

Bruce

Bruce_Byars at baylor.edu


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