In order to better understand the increasing availability and emerging popularity of opensource GIS options, you first of all need to place it in a wider evolutionary context. From the 5th Century’s Babylonian stone carving map, through to the creation of the Mercator navigational Projection, and later on to the development of the printing press, the power of mapping has always been about its ability to communicate and disseminate knowledge and ideas about our world. GIS is the most recent phase of mapping evolution which carries on this tradition. Prior to its commercialisation in the 1980s and 1990s, GIS was...
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