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GRASS GIS 5.0.0pre4 released 13 May 2002

The GRASS Development Team announces:  GRASS GIS 5.0.0pre4 released 13  May 2002

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for data management, image processing, graphics production, spatial modeling, and visualization of many types of data. It is Free Software released unter GNU General Public License (GPL).

[Platforms supported by GRASS: GNU/Linux, Sun Solaris, Sun Solaris/Intel, Silicon Graphics Irix, HP-UX, DEC-Alpha, PowerPC, MacOS X, AIX, BSD, CRAY , iPAQ/Linux and other UNIX compliant platforms (32/64bit), Windows NT/2000/XP running Cygnus.

[Where to get the new release:

http://grass.itc.it http://www3.baylor.edu/grass/ and through the mirrors (Argentina | Australia (local only) | Brazil | Croatia | Finland | France | Germany | Italy | Japan | Namibia | Poland | Slovakia | South Africa | South Korea | Taiwan | Thailand (NECTEC) | Turkey | Uruguay | U.S.A. (ibiblio.org))

The new source code is available, selected binaries will be built the next days. A NEWS file briefly describes the major  changes, the full ChangeLog is also available.

The general focus of the GRASS 5.0.x series is stability and reliability. Proposed major changes in vector and attribute management are scheduled for the next stable series, planned as GRASS 5.2.x. Work for this has started by developers using an experimental series numbered 5.1.x since December 2001. For details on GRASS software capabilities please refer to: http://grass.itc.it/general.html.

What’s new in GRASS 5.0.0pre4:

  • Details: please read NEWS

  • Improvements (excerpt only, for details see NEWS above):

  • 63 GIS modules fixed or updated

  • improved configuration (autoconf)

  • optional shared libraries (GRASS libs) support

  • portability improved (now running also on iPAQ/Linux)

  • fixes for generic Windows display driver

  • updated module documentation (HTML and PDF)

GRASS 5 Upgrade NOTE: Only, in case you upgrade from GRASSbeta1..beta11, you have to convert the floating point raster data. Find more here.

Why is 5.0.0 not yet released? The developers want to ensure that 5.0.0 is a stable release. With the current GRASS development team the way GRASS is development has been changed significantly. It mostly relies on people willing to help. This 5.0.0pre4 release is a candidate for becoming the 5.0.0 release. It can only be made stable if it enjoys a lot of testing. Please give it a spin. Report bugs to the GRASS bugtracker]{.c4}[. Don’t hesitate to report a bug which you find in the new release.

In case you are interested to join the developers team, and/or share algorithms or ideas with the GRASS community, contact us! http://grass.itc.it/grassdevel.html http://www3.baylor.edu/grass/grassdevel.html

We hope you enjoy the ongoing development! On behalf of the GRASS Development Team

Markus Neteler*


Date: 13 May 2002