Demise of GRASS

[Gerald I. Evenden]

Given the last few notes about the funding status of GRASS, I believe
the only remaining question is: where do we send the flowers?  Unless a
package is growing, and people are actively feeding it with new ideas,
methods and refining the old ones, it becomes senile and fades into
oblivion.  Efforts to simply maintain it are nothing more than
attaching IV's and a respirator---continuing the vital signs of
something that will soon become brain-dead.

This is unfortunate because GRASS is one of the few, if not only,
public domain GIS systems and thus provided a service for those lacking
deep pockets.  By being open software, it also allow others to
contribute procedures and methods more easily than allowed by
proprietary systems and thus afforded a research environment for
developing GIS tools.

I am sure that some readers will claim I am too hasty to bury GRASS
and should wait until the body is cold.  But my conclusions on GRASS's
status are meant to either shock those who do not see the significance
of recent discussions or warn potential new users away from getting
involved with a dying system.  A third alternative is to get some
group interested in picking up where CERL has left off; but I
do not feel that is likely.

Gerald (Jerry) I. Evenden   Internet: gie at charon.er.usgs.gov
voice: (508)563-6766          Postal: P.O. Box 1027
  fax: (508)457-2310                  N.Falmouth, MA 02556-1027