[GRASS5] libgrass license?

[Glynn Clements]

Hamish wrote:

> Surely the file format isn't that complicated that GRASS libraries have
> to be used for read/write.

File *formats* (plural). A single map can consist of multiple files
(cellhd, cell/fcell, cats, colr, hist, plus any number of cell_misc
files), each with their own format.

The cell/fcell files are non-trivial; CELL can have 1-4 bytes per
CELL, while FCELL/DCELL use XDR encoding. Both have optional
compression (CELL uses RLE, FCELL/DCELL use zlib). Then there's the
NULL-value bitmap and reclass tables.

Also, there is no guarantee that the formats won't be extended (or
simply changed) in the future.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>