[GRASS-user] GIS software popularity ranking: http://gisgeography.com/mapping-out-gis-software-landscape

[Thomas Adams]

Rich,

The only problem (not for us per se) is wider acceptance of GRASS GIS based
on inherent biases derived from a lack of familiarity with GRASS and blind
disregard for it. At worst, GRASS' capabilities are misrepresented. GRASS,
QGIS, SAGA GIS, etc. represent threats to ESRI -- they are not above
spreading falsehoods... A larger user base enriches open source projects --
R serves as a great example...

Tom

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Sep 2016, Dave Roberts wrote:
>
> Sadly, it's not just Microsoft users that take the GUI view.  A couple of
>> years ago GRASS was reviewed in Linux Journal and they didn't even mention
>> it was scriptable. I wrote a letter to the editor to point that out and
>> they responded that that was minimally interesting.
>>
>
> Dave,
>
>   I think this makes sense in the context in which desktop GIS developed.
> It
> was developed and marketed as mapping software. It could be used to answer
> two main questions: what is where? And, where is what? I'm thinking of
> MapInfo in the early 1990s where one could do simple vector overlays but
> the
> emphasis was on producing pretty maps. This was different from the
> PC-ARC/Info I used for a year or so in the late 1980s (I was a beta tester
> for them) and certainly from GRASS (which I started using in the
> mid-1990s.).
>
>   Think of the rise of desktop publishing in the mid- to late-1980s.
> Suddenly, everyone became a graphic designer (in their own minds, at least)
> and produced many ugly fliers and documents. This is similar to the
> difference between GIS as a computerized map creation tool and as spatial
> analysis tool.
>
>   Germane to the various GIS software reviews and rankings allow me to
> suggest that we ignore them. Those who matter don't mind that GRASS is
> poo-poo'd for using such complexities as the console and scripts, and those
> who mind don't matter because they wouldn't use GRASS anyway.
>
>
> Rich
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