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Speaking on behave of folks who support archives, I highly recommend keeping old drivers, unless as Frank stated, they cause an issue (code or license). We are often faced with dealing with code rot, but in the same vein, we will also find ourselves dealing
with more and more outdated file formats. I would much rather keep an old harmless driver around than trying to install crusty binaries (or compile old code). To clean-up the growing list of drivers, perhaps the code and driver listings can be grouped together
(only shown with some flag .e.g. --show_crusty_drivers :-).</div>
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my 2 cents,</div>
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Trent</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>From:</b> gdal-dev <gdal-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam@pobox.com><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, January 11, 2021 3:54 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Even Rouault <even.rouault@spatialys.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> gdal dev <gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [EXTERNAL] Re: [gdal-dev] Considering drivers removal ?</font>
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<p> <span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Even,</span></p>
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<div class="x_gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">My opinion is that old drivers which do not depend on external libraries/services and that we have tests for should be retained until they cause painful problems. I would be supportive of dropping
drivers for which there is no apparent interest, and that are not buildable and testable due to dependence on external libraries and services. We can always reintroduce them if someone comes forward and wants them and is willing to help support them.</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br>
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<div class="x_gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">LAN, NTv1 and SDTS Raster are examples (IMHO) of relatively low value drivers that should be retained because they are buildable, testable and not problematic. </div>
<div class="x_gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br>
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<div class="x_gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Best regards,</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Frank</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="x_gmail_attr">On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 6:02 PM Even Rouault <<a href="mailto:even.rouault@spatialys.com">even.rouault@spatialys.com</a>> wrote:<br>
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<blockquote class="x_gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204); padding-left:1ex">
Hi,<br>
<br>
It's not spring yet, but I'm in a mood lately of axing useless things, and we <br>
probably have tons of candidate for that in GDAL, especially in drivers.<br>
I was going to just axe the DB2 driver<br>
(<a href="https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FOSGeo%2Fgdal%2Fpull%2F3366&data=04%7C01%7Cthare%40usgs.gov%7C1e2f55b493a14743e05308d8b68403af%7C0693b5ba4b184d7b9341f32f400a5494%7C0%7C0%7C637460025413382723%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=yL2QV58xeFIATK6fhCNe9D5spR49Hi9wdmOFwPZLwV4%3D&reserved=0" originalsrc="https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/3366" shash="tsmwjaa1XQuIZdAd7ZrEepv4Qp8fYuhkIo9aVzle+x9GinKcxNQMig8DD3eGfQxg+WESU070SM6yDyUZ5FR7XEiX0hNqOZgIGb1f/ACSQGi9SwuD7wRqmyWY05JHliFon4WzbplBsfXUab8StHbzMsWqbQDEhrn2fLzdo5K9gyo=" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/3366</a>)
but the issue is more general.<br>
<br>
Any idea how we can know what is used and what isn't ? A "call-home" <br>
functionality where we would track driver usage would only be acceptable if <br>
people enable it and have network connectivity, so we won't probably get lots <br>
of feedback. Having a spreadsheet with the driver list and asking people to <br>
fill it would probably also receive little feedback. So the idea I had was to <br>
do something like the following in the Open() method of a candidate for <br>
removal:<br>
<br>
GDALDataset* FooDriver::Open( .... )<br>
{<br>
if( !Identify(poOpenInfo) )<br>
return nullptr;<br>
<br>
if( !CPLTestBool(CPLGetConfigOption("GDAL_ENABLE_DRIVER_FOO", "NO") )<br>
{<br>
CPLError(CE_Failure, CPLE_AppDefined,<br>
"Driver FOO is considered for removal in GDAL 3.5. You are invited "<br>
"to convert any dataset in that format to another more common one ."<br>
"If you need this driver in future GDAL versions, create a ticket at "<br>
"<a href="https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FOSGeo%2Fgdal&data=04%7C01%7Cthare%40usgs.gov%7C1e2f55b493a14743e05308d8b68403af%7C0693b5ba4b184d7b9341f32f400a5494%7C0%7C0%7C637460025413382723%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=acUQRtJEPXcmhT0cB0VeH0pRzCc8r5n5Pj7E1EtdFjA%3D&reserved=0" originalsrc="https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal" shash="A0wwlNX5Y+UIVGQLKQFYehJeOdDx/RAXsbk5gyMuGcKrU34QDkcakRFXLSj2dbx34u4FldI4gzsEIpK9MgNVZeZ22a2F4fSSg6rexh7tca8/QEQV/LhhjC9ZptpOF3zCQFefgKHocQ3WnzIAnvHkQ/9raVPemDddTcTiPCMdcZk=" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal</a>
(look first for an existing one first) to "<br>
"explain how critical it is for you (but the GDAL project may still "<br>
"remove it), and to enable it now, set the GDAL_ENABLE_DRIVER_FOO "<br>
"configuration option / environment variable to YES");<br>
return nullptr;<br>
}<br>
...<br>
}<br>
<br>
That is, when we detect a file to be handled by the driver, emit the above <br>
error message and do not open the dataset, unless the user defines the <br>
environment variable.<br>
Similarly in the Create()/CreateCopy() methods.<br>
If we ship this in 3.3, with a 3.5 milestone for removal, this would offer a <br>
feedback period of one year / 2 feature versions.<br>
<br>
Here's my own list of candidates for retirement (probably over-conservative). <br>
Mostly based on gut feeling. None of them are particularly bad citizens, but I <br>
have no indication that they are still used, which doesn't mean they aren't.<br>
<br>
* Raster side:<br>
BPG<br>
DB2Raster<br>
DOQ1<br>
DOQ2<br>
E00GRID<br>
Epsilon<br>
FujiBAS<br>
GS7BG<br>
GSAG<br>
IDA<br>
JDEM<br>
JPEG2000 (Jasper): JP2OpenJPEG is a better replacement<br>
JPEGLS<br>
LAN<br>
MFF<br>
MG4Lidar ?<br>
NDF<br>
NTv1<br>
SDTS Raster<br>
SGI<br>
XPM<br>
ZMap<br>
<br>
* Vector side:<br>
AERONAVFAA<br>
ESRI ArcObjects<br>
ARCGEN<br>
BNA<br>
Cloudant<br>
CouchDB<br>
DB2<br>
DODS<br>
FMEObjects Gateway<br>
Geomedia MDB<br>
GMT ASCII Vectors<br>
GTM<br>
HTF<br>
INGRES<br>
MongoDB (the old one, superseded by MongoDBv3)<br>
OpenAIR<br>
REC<br>
SDTS<br>
SUA<br>
SVG<br>
TIGER<br>
WALK<br>
<br>
<br>
Anything you'd add / remove ?<br>
<br>
What is not obvious is what would be the criterion for keeping a driver: 1, <br>
10, 100 users asking for the driver to be kept ?<br>
If a GDAL developer contributing to the overall good of the project needs the <br>
preservation of a driver to be able to justify its continued involvement, I'd <br>
tend to think it to be enough to keep it.<br>
<br>
<br>
Even<br>
<br>
-- <br>
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<div><font face="monospace">---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------<br>
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, <a href="mailto:warmerdam@pobox.com" target="_blank">
warmerdam@pobox.com</a><br>
light and sound - activate the windows | +1 650-701-7823<br>
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Software Developer</font></div>
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