[QGIS-Developer] Fwd: GRASS in QGIS

[Andreas Neumann]

Hi,

I second Stefan's opinion.

While I value the GRASS contribution and there are some very valuable 
algorithms in GRASS I think that the majority of our users never use 
GRASS.

If we could make it an optional or separate part of the QGIS installer I 
would prefer it. It would also save a lot of band-width and disk space 
and would avoid some of the issues we have with security scanners who 
seem to dislike the GRASS file naming patterns like r.out.png.exe - we 
have many false positives of security scanners about these file naming 
patterns.

Those who do need GRASS however, should still have easy access to it 
with a separate easy to use installer.

I will raise this issue at the next PSC meeting.

Andreas

On 2026-10-11 13:00, Stefan Keller via QGIS-Developer wrote:
> Please allow me to comment on this for the attention of those involved.
> While I am not a QGIS C++ developer, I have developed over half a
> dozen Python plugins and teach QGIS to users who mostly use Windows.
> I use GRASS r.sun in a project (and the original GRASS docs
> was good) and value it for specialized analyses, particularly in the
> fields of scientific computing like photovoltaics and hydrology.
> 
> However, I have a request, primarily for the QGIS maintainers: GRASS
> should be a separate plugin that isn’t installed by default, as is
> currently the case at least on Windows. GRASS doubles the size of the
> QGIS distribution and installation, which, in my opinion, makes QGIS
> unnecessarily "heavy" for the majority of QGIS users.
> 
> --Stefan
> 
> Am Do., 8. Okt. 2026 um 06:04 Uhr schrieb DelazJ via QGIS-Developer
> <qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org>:
>> 
>> Hi devs,
>> We are currently updating the GRASS chapter in QGIS docs [1], a 
>> chapter left untouched for more than a decade, and we would have some 
>> questions:
>> 
>> 1- Can someone remind us why the "GRASS 8" plugin in the Plugins 
>> Manager is labeled as deprecated? What are the actual plans? Afaict 
>> there are lots of features not yet ported to Browser panel or 
>> Processing (mapset/project handling, digitizing,...).
>> 
>> 2- Considering the plugin name, is GRASS 8 the only supported version 
>> in QGIS? No older releases?
>> 
>> 3- What are the requirements to get the "GRASS 8" or the "GRASS GIS 
>> Processing" plugins available in the Plugins Manager? I've always 
>> thought both were listed by default in every installation and would 
>> only work if and only if GRASS software is installed and configured, 
>> but having checked on different machines in the docs team (Windows 
>> standalone and OSGeo4W, macOS, self-build on Trixie, nixOS), with 
>> GRASS installed or not installed, we got different results I couldn't 
>> figure out the logic behind the scene. Thanks for any clarification.
>> 
>> 4- There is no real GRASS user in the team so while refactoring the 
>> chapter, we reuse some texts that may no longer be true. Reviews for 
>> the docs pull requests [2] by better informed people are more than 
>> welcome. FYI I split the updates into smaller PRs in the hope of 
>> attracting reviewers, even those in a hurry.
>> 
>> Thanks for any reply...
>> 
>> [1] 
>> https://docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/grass_integration/grass_integration.html
>> [2] 
>> https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Documentation/pulls?q=is%3Apr+state%3Aopen+label%3AGrass
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Harrissou
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