[GRASS5] Proposed process for GRASS reorganization (please read)

[Malcolm Blue]

Rich Shepard wrote:

> On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> 
>> Thinking about this, I really would call it a redesign and redevelopment
>> so why call it GRASS? We call do not know if the redesign works out and
>> how long people will still use GRASS 5.x. So why cutting of the
>> possibility of the GRASS 5.x development line to be continued in numbers.
>> 
>> A new free GIS project based on GRASS is certainly very good, but I think
>> that it should have a new name.
> 
> 
>   Why? When you buy a new model car, does it have a different brand name?
> Other software evolve, but use the data produced by older versions and they
> still retain the same name.

Usually the car manufacturers change the name more than the design.  
Ford/Mercury models, for example, have been almost identical with 
different brand names.  Conversely, the same name gets used over and 
over for radically different autos.  This argument goes either way. 

Software brand names change very often after significant design 
changes.  Borland Pascal -> Delphi, Microsoft C++ -> Microsoft Visual 
C++, etc.

Often software brand name change for no apparent reason.  Windows 98 -> 
Windows Me, Sun Unix -> Solaris, etc.

> 
>   You're welcome to make your own GIS called whatever you'd like, but I
> don't find any reason to change the name from GRASS because it's
> restructured.

It really depends on the significance and the nature of the 
restructuring.  If some fundamental changes are made in the core of 
grass and grass evolves along a new but singular path, then I would 
suggest that it would be reasonable to keep the grass name.  If this is 
more of an fork in the road, where grass moves in two directions - one 
following the existing grass structure and another (significant) 
redesigned structure - then the redesigned structure would be better off 
having a new name.  If this is more of a framework built around existing 
grass structure, with potentially some changes to grass internals to 
facilitate the framework (as some of strobe's writings suggest - I'm not 
sure), then this would be better off  with a new name.  

> 
>   If you're running linux, look at the changes in the kernel and ip
> functions between even the 2.0 and 2.2 kernels. No longer do we have
> ipfwadmin, we have ipchains. Same linux kernel, new structures.

These were more evolutionary changes than radical departures, plus the 
linux community moved along with these changes as a whole.  This is like 
the ford mustang, which changed a great deal over the years.  I think 
the suggestion for renaming the restructured grass development is more 
in line with the ford mustang vs ford probe.  Same idea:  sports car for 
the masses; they just appeal to different buyers.  Ford kept producing 
the mustang while designing the probe, although they would have quit if 
all of the mustang drivers started buying probes instead.

> 
> Rich
> 
> Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

Before we make any decisions on this, I would like to see what the new 
'restructuring' changes are going to be.  So far there has not been a 
lot of details provided.  I am interested to see what comes of these 
ideas (some of them I like), but hope that we see a stable grass 5.0 and 
grass 5.1 as a first priority.  There are a lot of great ideas already 
for grass 5.1.  These are desired by more of the grass community than a 
whole new direction.  And I think they would appeal to a large potential 
user base.

I would like grass to be different in a lot of ways, but most of all I 
want the functionality that grass provides now and the functionality 
proposed for the future.  Also, I don't want to lose any of the 
advantages that grass provides.  The ability to use the power of Unix 
scripting or a GUI interface as required, the ability to use multiple 
programming interfaces, the ability to interface grass with the 
countless other GPL software packages, etc. These are important to me, 
but might not be to everyone.

For now, I plan to follow Markus's game plan for grass 5.x.  I want to 
see these ideas implemented, and will contribute in whatever small way I 
can.  Diverging now would be huge mistake.  There are a small number of 
developers, and a lot of these, like myself, can only contribute on a 
limited basis, due to other commitments (paying jobs, family, etc.). 
Hopefully, we can focus on the priorities.


Malcolm


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