[Qgis-psc] A question on the etymology of QGIS

Tue Sep 4 07:12:30 PDT 2018

Thank you Gary and Andreas,

 The question I have is that several folks are urging me to remove any mention of the (legacy) 'quantum' word from an article that discusses the history of QGIS. I am not sure if it is right to try to erase history.

 Unless there is a direct request from QGIS leadership I will leave the historical footnote in the article. I contacted Nick Bearman and he is Ok with leaving it in.

 btw: I would like top add more content about QGIS in our publication and would be happy to publish any articles, tips, and how-to's anyone from the team wishes to submit :)

 Cheers,

  Gavin Schrock, PLS
 Editor, xyHt Magazine
 www.xyht.com
 +206-816-9338

----------------------------------------
 From: "Gary Sherman" <gsherman at geoapt.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2018 6:58 AM
To: "Andreas Neumann" <andreas at qgis.org>
Cc: "Gary Sherman" <gary at qgis.org>, "qgis-psc" <qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Qgis-psc] A question on the etymology of QGIS   
      On Sep 3, 2018, at 10:23 PM, Andreas Neumann <andreas at qgis.org> wrote:
      Hi,

I was also always assuming that the "Q" stems from the fact, that the qt library is essential in the creation of QGIS. qt is the cross-platform library that allows us to deliver QGIS on many different operating systems. It provides the GUI (graphical user interface), rendering (2D and 3D), network access, calculations and many more. But it is not the only library that is essential for QGIS. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) for more information on QT.

 Or maybe the "Q" still refers to "Quantum" - which I would assume that it means that it is a very "small" GIS, referring to the humble beginnings of QGIS, which as far as I know started as a Postgis viewer.

 @Gary - could you please comment on this question?

Every project has to have a cool name right? I was partly influenced by the fact we use Qt. The etymology of the word gives the sense of "quantity," so we have a quantity or portion of GIS. It doesn't really convey the meaning of small. In the end it sounded pretty good and made a nice acronym (QGIS). There is no deep seeded secret meaning-at least one I'm not willing to share in this life (j/k).

 -gary

 Thanks,
 Andreas

   On 4 September 2018 at 07:33, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it> wrote:    

Hi,  

I assumed `Q` came from the Qt framework used since the beginning, but only Gary knos that for sure.  

All the best.    Il 09/03/2018 11:35 PM, gavin.schrock at xyht.com ha scritto:
  Thank you Tim,

 It only gets mentioned once, a to note that it was once used but is now no longer, only in the article mentioning the origins ,and for all other articles QGIS is the only term used.

 G

----------------------------------------
 From: "Tim Sutton" <tim at kartoza.com>
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2018 2:23 PM
To: gavin.schrock at xyht.com
Cc: "qgis-psc" <qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org>, "Paolo Cavallini" <cavallini at faunalia.it>
Subject: Re: [Qgis-psc] A question on the etymology of QGIS    
 Hi Gavin            On 03 Sep 2018, at 23:02, gavin.schrock at xyht.com <gavin.schrock at xyHt.com> wrote:
     Hi Paolo and team,

 I have a quick question regarding the 4 articles appearing in the September issue of xyHt Magazine.  There are four articles containing insights from you, Nick B, Anita, Tim S, etc.  I'm the editor of xyHt and a question has come up about the Q in QGIS.  The running of these articles came directly f=as result of inquiries from our readers asking to learn more about QGIS. One of the questions, while perhaps trivial was  "what is the meaning of the Q in QGIS".

 I fully understand that in the present  that no one would ever refer to QGIS with the 'quantum' prefix, but it was part of the history and all we wanted to do was resolve the mystery of the 'Q" by stating: at one time referred to as Quantum GIS, but now simply as QGIS

 One of the article contributors would like us to remove any mention of 'quantum', but is that the desire of the entire team?  We are a news publication, and the history is part of the news. Does the board have any problem with us mentioning this item from the history of QGIS as stated above?

   I think there is no problem mentioning that it was formally called Quantum GIS, but it would be good to use QGIS consistently after that. The Q / Quantum word don't have any deeper meaning that I am aware of.

   Regards

   Tim

 Kindest regards,

   Gavin Schrock, PLS

  Editor, xyHt Magazine

  www.xyht.com

  +206-816-9338

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