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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Hi,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">It is always hard to know who are using products and services and software which can be accessed without a contract and a credit card. We have (unintentionally) noticed
in our agency that despite the surveys and information campaigns, the feedback from the not-paying users really starts to flow in once we have unplugged the servers. In this CSharp bindings case it seems that the threat of unplugging was enough to trigger
the feedback and obviously the CSharp bindings are worth keeping even they may not be in the best possible shape.<br>
<br>
As a comparison, I think that nobody reacted or noticed when the GDAL Perl bindings were removed in GDAL 3.5.0 release. An external alternative appeared and it is still maintained
<a href="https://gdal.org/en/stable/api/index.html#gdal-ogr-in-other-languages">https://gdal.org/en/stable/api/index.html#gdal-ogr-in-other-languages</a>,
<a href="https://metacpan.org/dist/Geo-GDAL-FFI">https://metacpan.org/dist/Geo-GDAL-FFI</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">-Jukka Rahkonen-<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Lähettäjä:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> gdal-dev <gdal-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org>
<b>Puolesta </b>Paul Harwood via gdal-dev<br>
<b>Lähetetty:</b> perjantai 31. tammikuuta 2025 14.10<br>
<b>Vastaanottaja:</b> Michael Smith <michael.smith.erdc@gmail.com><br>
<b>Kopio:</b> gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org<br>
<b>Aihe:</b> Re: [gdal-dev] CSharp bindings queued for removal (was Re: GDAL CSharp bindings maintainers/contributors listening... ?)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">The problem about "moving" the bindings is going to be that all of the SWIG definitions for all bindings are intimately wound together. It would be a lot of work for little gain.<br>
<br>
The danger of the "surveys and feedback" driven approach, which I felt like saying at the time of the last survey but in the end thought it would just be ignored, is that the approach, although good and important, is intrinsically biased towards certain channels.<br>
<br>
The people who use the CLI are going to be massively over represented - since I am sure they all know what GDAL is and use the website. <br>
<br>
However, there are vast swathes of end users of GDAL who have absolutely no idea what GDAL is.<br>
<br>
- the vast majority of QGIS users, the archeologists, the data scientists etc etc have no idea what GDAL is,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">- I am absolutely sure that none of the users of Google maps knows that (I am sure I heard anecdotally) GDAL is important to the data ingestion for maps,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">- I know that very few of the users in R are aware of GDAL - even when they refer to rgdal in their scripts (it is just a name).<br>
<br>
And just so, since the Java and C# bindings (and to a lesser extent the Python bindings in Fiona and Rasterio) are bundled to packages (e.g Nuget, npm and UPM) that are (in some cases) bundled into other packages that are bundled in to applications that are
distributed - I am absolutely sure that no one does or can know how many end users are using GDAL through these channels but I would be willing to bet that it is orders of magnitude higher than you think it is.<br>
<br>
The danger is, of course, that if you based strategy purely on the latest survey then you would say that GDAL should ONLY be a CLI.<br>
<br>
If you based strategy on what we know about end user numbers, you would probably say that GDAL should be a dedicated module of QGIS and the CLI should be deprecated!<br>
<br>
Or possibly a dedicated batch back end for Google maps.<br>
<br>
NONE of these possibilities would be a valid response to our lack of knowledge.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 at 18:00, Michael Smith via gdal-dev <<a href="mailto:gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org">gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Maybe the bindings should be moved out if gdal to a separate repo so those interested in the bindings
can monitor that specific repo and not gdal in general. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Mike</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">-- </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Michael Smith</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Remote Sensing/GIS Center</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">US Army Corps of Engineers</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">From:
</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">gdal-dev <<a href="mailto:gdal-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">gdal-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a>> on behalf of Tamas Szekeres via gdal-dev <<a href="mailto:gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org</a>><br>
<b>Reply-To: </b>Tamas Szekeres <<a href="mailto:szekerest@gmail.com" target="_blank">szekerest@gmail.com</a>><br>
<b>Date: </b>Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 12:41 PM<br>
<b>To: </b>Even Rouault <<a href="mailto:even.rouault@spatialys.com" target="_blank">even.rouault@spatialys.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc: </b>"<a href="mailto:gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [gdal-dev] CSharp bindings queued for removal (was Re: GDAL CSharp bindings maintainers/contributors listening... ?)</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">Even,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">The silence is not necessary because we neglect the C# bindings, just because we are doing our daily work (using the bindings).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">I'm personally maintaining the
<a href="https://www.nuget.org/packages/GDAL" target="_blank">GDAL</a> and it's related nuget packages based on these bindings for several years and it has 658.1K downloads overall and 147 downloads per day in average. The packages are used by projects such
as ArduPilot/MissionPlanner, DotSpatial, SharpMap which are also widely used projects, so we can consider the importance sigificant, and such change (removing the bindings entirely) would involve general dissatisfaction against GDAL I think. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">In my opinion, we should also distinguish whether an issue reported against the binding is a blocker or just a nice to have change. In my understanding the implementation
of the UTF-8 to unicode conversion at all relevant methods would be beneficial, but not something which would block the overall usage (it has already been done for the most important parts I think). If the required functionality is really important to someone,
I think he/she will spend some time to contribute it or pay someone to make it happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">I also think that the gdal-dev list is not proactively monitored by the GDAL users (or by the indirect users) well enough, so that we can make such decisions
to remove a binding or a driver nased on that. Whe should probably find some alternative ways (like surveys or feedback forms at the site or gather some other statistics like doc page loads and downloads) by which the community can express their interest against
a specific component and would be sufficient to detect disinterests.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">In any case, I'll review and will be trying to to sort out some open issues against csharp in the next few weeks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">Best regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">Tamas<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">Even Rouault via gdal-dev <<a href="mailto:gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org</a>> ezt írta (időpont: 2025. jan. 29., Sze, 5:33):<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p><span lang="EN-US">Hearing silence, the only logical conclusion is that there is no interest ==>
<a href="https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11746" target="_blank">https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11746</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">Le 27/09/2024 à 20:15, Even Rouault via gdal-dev a écrit :<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p><span lang="EN-US">Hi,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">This is your regular remainder that nobody in the core GDAL maintainer team is a CSharp
</span><span lang="FR">aficionado (we don't have a personal grief against it, just that we are blatantly ignorant, at least speaking for myself !), so related tickets about it will definitely result in no action.
</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span lang="FR">See <a href="https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22csharp+bindings%22" target="_blank">
https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22csharp+bindings%22</a></span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span lang="FR">The current trend is that people seem to be annoyed by UTF-8 related issues. The issue is likely that our methods that accept or take a const char* in the SWIG bindings should use a specific typemap to map to CSharp Unicode strings instead
of the "C" one or whatever those concepts are called in CSharp. There is an existing "utf8_path" typemap that is used in method that accept filenames, that should probably be renamed to utf8_string and be used more extensively. And probably with a version
of the methods to also return a raw C string / bytearray in the cases where drivers don't know the encoding and might return "random" stuff. Cf pull request #10652 where I did something for Java that suffered from that later issue.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="FR">Happy pull requests!
</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span lang="FR">Even</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">-- <o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.spatialys.com/" target="_blank">http://www.spatialys.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">My software is free, but my time generally not.<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">gdal-dev mailing list<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">gdal-dev@lists.osgeo.org</a><o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/gdal-dev" target="_blank">https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/gdal-dev</a><o:p></o:p></span></pre>
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<pre><span lang="EN-US">-- <o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.spatialys.com/" target="_blank">http://www.spatialys.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">My software is free, but my time generally not.<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">Grumpy maintainer.<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span lang="EN-US">"De l'égo à l'égoût, il n'y a qu'une bouche mal refermée", André Isaac<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">_______________________________________________<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN-US">_______________________________________________ gdal-dev mailing list
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<p class="MsoNormal">_______________________________________________<br>
gdal-dev mailing list<br>
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