[GRASS5] National Center for Open Source Policy and Research

[Roger Miller]

I'm not sure how much this can help GRASS in the US.

Several years ago the GAO decided that all federal agencies would use one GIS 
provider.  They chose ESRI software and that is one of the factors that gave 
ESRI such a huge share of the US market.  Federal support for other GIS 
software -- notably GRASS and MOSS -- stopped at about that time.  Major uses 
of GRASS by Federal agencies (NRCS in particular) were ported to ArcInfo.  
Research institutions that worked with NRCS (e.g. Texas A&M Blacklands 
Institute and the Cornell Soil and Water Lab) seem to have drifted away from 
their commitment to GRASS.

There may be other restrictions on federal agency use of Open Source software.

Roger Miller

On Wednesday 26 October 2005 01:21, Michael Barton wrote:

> I just came across this new center to help encourage open source software
> for government agencies. If I understand it correctly, if US government
> agencies use GRASS and register it here the center will help with
> distribution of software and information. Might be something to send on out
> to the user list.
>
> <http://www.ncospr.org/index.php>
>
> Michael
>
> __________________________________________
> Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
> School of Human Evolution and Social Change
> Arizona State University
> Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
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> fax: 480-965-7671
> www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
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