[gdal-dev] Misc. subjects : OSGeo Vienna code sprint, release plans, GDAL 2.0

[Even Rouault]

Hi,

I've confirmed my presence to the OSGeo Vienna code sprint ( 
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Vienna_Code_Sprint_2014 ). Are there folks that 
will be there and indent doing some work on GDAL ? Any particular topics of 
interest ?

It could be the opportunity to take a crack at some changes that have been 
mentionned for some time and are listed at 
http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/GDAL20Changes

We should decide how to manage the 2.0 transition. I think that the 2.0 number 
should be reserved as the opportunity of introducing breaking changes in the 
API / ABI. But this might take a long time to implement all that is listed 
above, so there's a risk we end up with a trunk that is never ready for 
release for years. Not a good thing.
On the other hand, we could just be more modest and take breaking changes as 
they are introduced and raise the major version number (so the yearly version 
after 2.0 could be 3.0). This will require projects using GDAL to adapt 
multiple times.
An alternative would be to prepare the API for new features even if they are 
not implemented, but that's a difficult exercise and there's a risk that at 
implementation time, the API doesn't fit.
Any thoughts ?

Currently we have no such breakage in trunk so it could qualify as GDAL 1.11. 
Perhaps we should just release it as such for now before the bigger changes ?

Somes topics I can see for GDAL 2.0 that impact API/ABI :
- well, the mythological unification of OGR driver model with GDAL driver 
model.
- XYZM support
- Curve geometries
- 64 bit integer support

Other possible structural changes :
- Change of master version control system: switch to git / GitHub ?
- New build system : cmake ?

Of course all of this will more likely happen if contributors or funders show 
up !

Even

-- 
Geospatial professional services
http://even.rouault.free.fr/services.html