FTP site info and news

[Kenneth R. Brownfield]

     A handful of announcements and policy reminders.

     The widespread FTP problems that many of you have witnessed may now be
fixed.  After finally finding a machine that reproduced reported problems,
the administrators of the FTP site have debugged the server.  If anyone has
any further or continuing problems with the FTP site, send mail to OGI's FTP
administrator's address, grass-ftp-admin at moon.cecer.army.mil .

     A new version of src/libes/gis/area_poly1.c has been placed on the moon
in /grass/grass4.0/updates/src/libes/gis .  This update effects and fixes
v.to.rast, so be sure to recompile the gis library as well as v.to.rast.  A
short description of the bug from Michael Shapiro follows, and is included in
the README file in the above directory on the moon.

Michael Shapiro writes:
| There were algorithmic errors in the derivation of area that caused
| polygon areas in lat/lon to be computed incorrectly. They would
| only show up near certain longitudes. This had a major impact on v.to.rast
| which was still failing to convert some islands.

     In the wake of the discussion of uniting the Users' and Programmers'
mailing lists, I would like to more clearly define the purpose of both
lists.  The users' list should be used for questions and comments on the
normal operation of GRASS and related components from a user's point of view.
The programmers' list is dedicated to the writing, debugging, compiling, and
porting of GRASS or related code.  The programmers' list is much more technical
in nature, and should be isolated in function from the users' list.
     To better separate the function of these lists, please keep in mind
their original intent before posting.  Please make your best judgement as
to which list is most appropriate to receive your question or article, and
hopefully the lists will become more distinct and useful for everyone.

     As always, please mail me at grass-lists-owner at moon.cecer.army.mil if
you need any form of assistance with the GRASShopper mailing lists.
-- 
                                                          Ken.
                                                brownfld at cecer.army.mil
Kenneth R. Brownfield                    grass-lists-owner at moon.cecer.army.mil
Office of GRASS Integration,              grass-ftp-admin at moon.cecer.army.mil
United States Army Corps of Engineers             (217) 352-6511 x526
Construction Engineering Research Laboratories    (217) 373-7222 <fax