[GRASS-user] mossy grass seeds

[Hamish]

Hi,

Inspired by Benjamin's rather nice OS/archaeology presentation[1] I was
reading a piece[2] by Carl Reed (CTO of the OGC) about his work on MOSS
GIS from the late 70s - early 80s while at the US FWS. MOSS was a vector
GIS [and Carl claims the first interactive user GIS] & early GRASS
[several years later, but there was some overlap] was primarily a raster
GIS so I don't think there would be much code overlap*. None the less,
the two names demonstrate a clear influence in the tradition of pine/elm,
pico/nano, less/more and certain ideas+terminology seem to be inherited
such as "mapsets".

[1] ftp://88.208.250.116/ducke-frankfurt-foss-gis-arch.pdf
[2] http://www.scribd.com/cnreed
[*] but v.out.moss in GRASS 5 was written by MOSS developers, maybe some
    SDTS stuff too?


just curious: was "GRASS" just cheeky naming by a competing US Gov't GIS
team or was there tangled roots in the early days?


Hamish