[GRASS5] Where is gdal library?

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

> On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> > I can't speak for everyone, but it is my hope to provide a substantial amount
> > of the raster importing support in GRASS via GDAL and r.in.gdal.  Obviously
> > other existing raster import will continue to work fine, and some formats may
> > never be added to GDAL, but I would like to encourage people interested in
> > adding new formats to GRASS to consider doing so within GDAL.  Also, since GDAL
> > is used in a number of projects (including a few commercial ones) you can
> > expect to see the GDAL format list growing over time from contributions
> > outside of GRASS.

I would like to see GDAL, OGR, PROJ used as standards
for many free GIS software (and the proprietary ones may use
them as well). Frank is doing a very good work here.

However, contributing to one of these currently means
that later code improvements might not return to you
(MIT license). For all of GRASS it is guaranteed with the GPL.
This is not to advocate not contributing to Franks libraries.
It is just to remember on this and perhaps to move
some thoughts about whether it would make sense to
license the libraries under LGPL some day.

I know there are pros and cons. E.g. for my company
it is better to invest work/money into software
where the future freedom is protected.
Other companies would only pay if they have
the option to make improvements proprietary.

Jan
-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/

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