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><H1
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><A
NAME="FUTURE"
>8. The Future of GRASS?</A
></H1
><P
> Excellent question! Several possible answers have been thrown out:
</P
><P
></P
><OL
TYPE="1"
><LI
><P
> USA/CERL's announced intention is to use GRASS and COTS (commercial
off-the-shelf software) for internal uses, to leave the GRASS
public web- and ftp-site on its system indefinitely, and to sign
cooperative research and development agreements with three
companies: (1) the Environmental Sciences Research Institute
(ESRI), (2) Intergraph, and (3) Logiciels et Applications
Scientifiques (L.A.S.) Inc. The first two agreements encouraged
the incorporation of GRASS concepts into ESRI's and Intergraph's
commercial GISs. The third encouraged the adaptation of GRASS'
concepts and code into a new commercial GIS by L.A.S. L.A.S. also
offered to encourage the continuation of a public domain GRASS, as
a viable stand-alone system and as a potential source of new ideas
and code for L.A.S.'s GRASSLAND. One observer noted that the first
two agreements might be akin to someone signing Linux over to
Microsoft. The same observer considers the experiment by/with
L.A.S. to be an interesting possibility - an attempt to keep viable
public domain and commercial versions of GRASS.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Some people believe that GRASS will wither without USA/CERL's
central management. Some believe that the Open GIS Consortium will
successfully guide industry into an open architecture that will
benefit all developers and users. Others believe that OGIS' effort
will lead to a cacophony of almost similar (but not quite
interoperable) vendor-specific "standards," so the loss of GRASS as
an open development platform will be felt sorely.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Some people believe that developments on some campuses and other
sites may result in those institutes keeping GRASS for awhile, but
in non-standard forms. In short, GRASS will undergo "cell
division" and lead to a cacophony of internally valuable, but
externally unused, GISs.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Others hope that GRASS' previous management model under USA/CERL
has left it ready for a new model. Perhaps:
</P
><P
></P
><OL
TYPE="a"
><LI
><P
> Under a new mentor, such as NASA (which needs an open,
powerful and scientific, GIS integrated with image processing
system for its Earth Observing System).
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Under a distributed management model... perhaps somewhat like Linux?
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Perhaps a bit of a hybrid? Perhaps a Web-based effort could
spawn a series of usenet discussion groups beginning with
</P
><P
></P
><UL
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass, and evolving to:
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.academics
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.publicservice
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.commercialvalueadded
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.commercialdistributors
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.programming
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.users
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> comp.infosystems.gis.grass.centralcommittee
</P
></LI
></UL
><P
> Clearly the topics are a bit tongue-in-cheek. However, under this
model, a Central Committee (including representation of academic,
public service [government and nongovernmental organizations],
commercial distributors and value added firms, programmers, and
users) would guide overall grass development and testing. The
other special interest groups would serve their user communities.
Academics, for example, would involve GIS and GRASS education, but
would also try to pull GRASS development in its direction. Value
added commercial developers would serve their own interests,
including trying to pull GRASS development in a direction that
would help their businesses. Users would help each other learn
GRASS, develop workarounds to bugs, etc.
</P
></LI
></OL
></LI
></OL
><P
> GRASS offers considerable potential for:
</P
><P
></P
><UL
><LI
><P
> Use as a scientific, as well as a traditional graphically oriented
GIS. Many GISs can make pretty maps. Many of those GISs cannot
easily perform certain scientific analytical functions as easily or
powerfully as GRASS. GRASS was designed and developed in response
to a perceived need for scientific GIS, specifically for
environmental analysis, and the environmental management/protection
of public lands. Incidentally, there is at least one Web-based
GRASS version.
<A
HREF="www.regis.berkeley.edu/grasslinks"
TARGET="_top"
><I
CLASS="CITETITLE"
>GRASSLINKS</I
></A
>,
developed at
<A
HREF="www.berkeley.edu"
TARGET="_top"
><I
CLASS="CITETITLE"
>The University of California at Berkeley</I
></A
>,
uses Web forms to submit commands to the server, which
creates .gif-based display output, places the images into pages,
and serves them up to the requester. More on that later.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Education. GRASS is easier to teach and learn than some other
GISs. It is easier to modify (for those that want to learn GIS as
computer science, rather than as "geography") than most other GISs
that come without source code and treat the program as a magical
black box. And, of course, it is more affordable for the student
of GIS than many other GISs.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Applications research and development. Many universities have used
GRASS. Its available source code, easy modification, easy
scriptability, etc., give it distinct advantages over some more
closed systems.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Public Service. GRASS has been used as a scientific GIS for many
public service applications. There is considerable value in
continuing a robust GIS that can ba packaged with any UNIX
workstation. There is considerably more value if that UNIX
workstation universe can include Linux (but is not constrained only
to Linux).
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GIS research and development. For example - do you want to
experiment with a different data model? Add it to GRASS!
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Commercialization. This document gives contact information for a
commercial version of GRASS. That company (and perhaps others?)
may welcome your help in enhancing/supporting their product.
</P
></LI
></UL
><P
> Who would be the Linus Torvalds equivalent in this management model?
Perhaps no single person. I have been involved in GRASS for about a
decade, when GRASS was the only GIS that satisfied my needs in
scientific data management and GIS application. Indeed, I had been a
dedicated avoider of the user-unfriendly UNIX environment until GRASS
forced me to learn it. Several senior GRASS developers are active in
GRASS-related activities and would like to see the continued vitality of
an open GRASS. It's likely that a reborn GRASS would attract a new crop
of friends. Thus the concept of a "Central Committee" to collectively
lead GRASS' transition to a more open management and development style.
</P
><P
> In short, the Linux community has an opportunity to take under its wing
a killer ap. GRASS' current public domain status is slightly different
from Linux's. However, that status could be discussed....
</P
><P
> Comments would be appreciated!
</P
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