GRASS is a free/open-source software for the processing of geographic information.

I started to use GRASS for my PhD in 1994 (for my Master’s dissertation in Gent, Belgium, I used IDRISI and an Intergraph MGS workstation). The source code was given to me by Paolo la Barbera from the University of Genova, and I think I have been one of the first ten people in Italt to use this software.

My first setup was on HP-UX. When the Silicon Graphics workstations arrived at the Department, I recompiled GRASS on Irix. Between 1994 and 2002 I used GRASS a lot…I could almost make coffee with it.

To understand the origins of this system, we warmly recommend the 1986 documentary with William Shatner as a narrator. See below.

To be added:

• The history of GRASS, and why the US Federal Administration stopped supporting it
• The visit to Markus Neteler in Hannover in 2000
• The email to Markus Neteler in 2005 (or 6?), with the idea of creating an event centered on free/open-source GIS for the international GIS Day
• The Palermo GRASS user conference in 2007

For technical information: the official GRASS web site. For pibinko-style insights and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org