Slashgeo

markusN writes "GRASS 6.2.1 is a new stable release which fixes several bugs discovered in the 6.2.0 source code. This release is solely for stability purposes and adds no new features. Besides bug fixes it also includes a number of new message translations, updates for the help pages, and will better handle errors caused by missing or incorrectly installed support software. It also introduces a new 3D raster module which was left out of the last release due to time constraints." The rest of the PR below.

moovida writes "It is official, JGrass goes UDig ! The JGrass team feels that it is time to join forces to continue the constant growth they had in the last years. Lots of things that JGrass misses are supplied greatly in other java gisses. That is the main reason why the JGrass team has taken the decision to join the UDIG team with all the JGrass code that is possible to migrate to their project and join their community. This will mainly add raster analysis support to UDig and also hopefully bring the worlds of GRASS and UDig to know each other a bit better. The two teams had a first offical IRC maraton of which the logs can be found here, the WIKI page of the migration progress is here. The JGrass team will be supported by HydroloGIS and Riccardo Rigon at the CUDAM. Special thanks go to the UDig team for the help they already gave and will give in future. As Pope John XXIII stated and Riccardo Rigon often repeats, search for what will join, not for what will split you up."

GEOconnexions runs a generic column about open source geospatial software, clearly presenting the context [pdf, 224k], written by Michael P. Gerlek of the OSGeo. From the column: "Second question: what do these all have in common? MapServer, MapGuide, PostGIS, GDAL, GRASS, OpenLayers, and QGIS. [...] This column is the first of a monthly series about the power of those packages, their developers, and their users. [...] The stability of the product is often much higher, making it a firmer foundation on which to build your own applications or perform your own data analysis. The release cycle is often much faster, meaning important bug fixes or new features appear more frequently. And while there certainly are many open source projects aimed at “cloning” popular closed source products, a number of open source products use technologies and approaches that are completely new and innovative, well ahead of their closed source cousins."

I discovered the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) described below, while reading this article on GRASS GIS and GMT integration [pdf, 450k] from the new OSGeo Journal. On its website, GMT is introduced as: "GMT is an open source collection of ~60 tools for manipulating geographic and Cartesian data sets (including filtering, trend fitting, gridding, projecting, etc.) and producing Encapsulated PostScript File (EPS) illustrations ranging from simple x-y plots via contour maps to artificially illuminated surfaces and 3-D perspective views. GMT supports ~30 map projections and transformations and comes with support data such as coastlines, rivers, and political boundaries. [...] So far, over 1500 such blocks have been registered, representing more than 15,000 individual GMT users."

timlinux writes "It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.9.0. Quantum GIS is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost (download here). We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome. This release introduces several new features including python bindings and many additional GRASS modules. The release also includes bug fixes and stability improvements. QGIS is available is source form, and as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. All versions can be obtained from our download page. As an open source project, we provide support for using QGIS via our mailing lists and bug tracker:

• For general enquiries subscribe to our users mailing list.
• For developer related enquiries subscribe to our separate developers list.
• If you think you have found a bug, please report it using our bug tracker. When reporting bugs, please include some contact information in case we need help with replicating your issue.

" This is really great news. Here's a few links from the official Quantum GIS blog that I kept waiting for this day: a link to the workbook named "Shuffling Quantum GIS into the Open Source Software Stack", the slides from the FOSS4G 2007 presentation named "Quantum GIS - Five Years and Counting" and here's a screencast for loading data into GRASS with QGIS. See also related stories below.

The powerful open source GRASS GIS team has just released version 6.2.3: "This release fixes a number of bugs discovered in the 6.2.2 source code. It is primarily for stability purposes and adds minimal new features. Besides bug fixes it also includes a number of new message translations and updates for the help pages. Highlights include further maturation of the GRASS 6 GUI, vector, and database code. Some improvements have been backported from the GRASS 6.3 development branch where new development continues at a strong pace of approximately one code commit every hour, including major work on an all new cross-platform wxPython GUI and a native MS Windows port." Below I copied a few related previous stories.