[GRASS5] Re: An internal db for GRASS

[Roger S. Miller]

Forgive my ignorance, but...

Rich Shepard wrote:

> > 2. It does not have spatial data structures. Just now there are flat
> > record/hash table/BTree options. It would be nice to have a system with
> > largely consistent features but give a wide variety of choices for the
> > type of key to use, including spatial types.
> 
>   If we're looking at a dbms for attribute data, I still like postgres. But,
> my understanding of the objections to postgres is that it doesn't handle
> spatial data structures. Apparently, Berkeley DB doesn't either. So, what do
> we gain by using it?

Postgres handles geometric data -- points, circles, polylines, polygons
and so on -- and includes functions to determine if a point is in an
area, two lines intersect and others (but no sort of raster
functionality).  How different is that from handling spacial data
structures?  Are those structures something that for some reason
couldn't be addressed as a user-defined type?

>   With postgres for attribute data we have a GPL application that runs on
> almost all platforms and is well documented and well supported.

I was of the impression that Postgres was under a Berkeley license, not
GPL.  Is the distinction significant?


Roger Miller
Lee Wilson and Associates

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