[GRASS-user] OT: Irony

[J Dougherty]

On Monday 09 July 2007 07:22, Thomas.Adams at noaa.gov wrote:
> Jan & others,
>
> I am in the process of 'selling' GRASS GIS to a large number of GIS experts
> within my agency in the U.S. next week. I am  preparing a presentation that
> focuses on our needs in hydrologic forecasting, which includes real-time
> data analysis and map production. At this point, my experience has been
> that anyone who has taken the time to give GRASS GIS a try, has been very
> impressed. In all of my discussions, I have not tried to say that GRASS can
> be a full replacement to, say, ArcGIS, but rather, to supplement ArcGIS.
> Part of my agencies' 'problem' is that our operational environment is
> Linux, which pretty much makes the use of ArcGIS a significant issue, not
> to mention the prohibitive cost of licensing to make GIS available to all
> potential users — up to 9 simultaneous users at each of approximately 140
> separate locations around the U.S.
>
> Regards,
> Tom
It is rather ironic to consider that GRASS was originally developed by the US 
Army Corps of Engineers, then abandoned more or less.  Since then it has 
grown profoundly as Marcus and the others here have developed it far beyond 
the constraints of the early raster system.  Now we see governmental 
departments gradually leaning more and more on Linux and FOSS software as 
costs of proprietary software, operating systems, and hardware become more 
critical.

JWDougherty