[R-sig-Geo] rgdal, regeos, maptools retirement: a world vanishing

[Roger Bivand]

Dear Patrick,

On Sun, 19 Sep 2021, Patrick Giraudoux wrote:

> Dear Roger,
>
> I had missed your message about rgdal, rgeos, maptools and your 
> retirement...  As being retired since 2 years, and emeritus as yourself, 
> I can tell you how free an "emeritus" can be when rid of all forms of 
> bureaucracies, competition for grants and institutional top-down 
> injunctions. To tell you the truth I never had before a so deep feeling 
> of being free to do the job for which I was paid for than since I am 
> retired/emeritus.

Indeed, this is unexpected freedom ...

>
> I want to warmly thank you for all the work done since decades (speaking 
> in the name of many in our lab). I remember our correspondence when I 
> was back from field work in China, in the early 2000, when I was asking 
> you how graphics could help and handle shapes and mapping... and I still 
> have the first edition of Applied Spatial Data Analysis with R with your 
> signing mentioning those early times. Of course thenafter, rgal, rgeos 
> and maptools have been instrumental for most of my papers in ecology and 
> epidemiology.

As you know, your postcard from China was a great encouragement!

>
> For sure, we will be a bit lost (and a bit scared not to find equivalent 
> facilities) in rewriting a large number of scripts with other 
> libraries... 😭

Hopefully, sp will continue, and some functionality for vector data may be 
placed in sp. We can also extend or edit

https://github.com/r-spatial/sf/wiki/Migrating

when more becomes clearer for raster data.

>
> Anyway, I wish you all the best for your new life, and hope our paths 
> will anyway cross from time to time...
>

That would be excellent!

Best wishes,

Roger

> Cheers,
>
> Patrick
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Patrick GIRAUDOUX*
> Professor emeritus of ecology
> Honorary member of the /Institut universitaire de France/
> Distinguished professor of the Yunnan University
> of Finance and Economics, China
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Chrono-environnement*
> UMR UFC/CNRS 6249 usc INRA
> Université de Franche-Comté
> La Bouloie
> 25030 Besançon Cedex, France
> Web sites:
>
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> IRN EHEDE <http://gdri-ehede.univ-fcomte.fr/>
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> Metadata portal 
> dat using osu<http://dataosu.obs-besancon.fr/search.php?s=giraudoux>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-- 
Roger Bivand
Emeritus Professor
Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics,
Postboks 3490 Ytre Sandviken, 5045 Bergen, Norway.
e-mail: Roger.Bivand using nhh.no
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2392-6140
https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=AWeghB0AAAAJ&hl=en