In response to the issue of complexity and multidimensional
data:
Grass is not a standard GIS, it is a reserach
tool and because of that we have to do some non quite standard things.
We are working with 3D and 4D data for couple of months and
new projects requiring this functionality are coming in.
We have 3D/4D visualization and interpolation programs running and we
are forcing GRASS to work with it. So we have sites:
x|y|#z concentration
or
x|y|#z error
(e.g. so that you can display your DEM with given points
which are colored or sized according to the predictive error so
that you can see how much you can trust your DEM)
or
x|y|#z soil property(quantitative measure)
or plain ascii files read from outside grass
x y z time concentration
I think that everybody agrees that this is a mess.
And my opinion is, that if we don't go to at least 3D
and if we don't support time series, GRASS will loose its
position as a leading GIS for Environmental Modeling
and become obsolete.
This is all only an explanation, I am not puting any conclusions
here, we will need some time to evaluate what was in the discussion
(which will probably continue for some time) and then to make the decision
about the standard.
Helena