[GRASS-dev] rasterlib and file layout

[Hamish]

Martin wrote:
> > The file layout should be consolidated.
> > Currently vectors are located in 'vector' directory,
....
> > I would vote for similar approach for raster files in
> > GRASS 7. So
> > 
> > raster/name/cats
> > raster/name/cell
> > raster/name/cellhd
> > raster/name/cell_misc
> > raster/name/colr
> > raster/name/fcell
> > raster/name/hist
> > ...
> > 
> > Any comments?

Glynn:
> Agreed. Except that there's no reason for the cell_misc
> directory to exist in such a layout.
> 
> One of the main reasons I added r.external was so that we
> could do this and fall back to GDAL for accessing the legacy
> layout. We really don't want to be supporting both layouts
> concurrently.
> 
> However, for that to work, we need to make GDAL's GRASS
> support independent of the GRASS libraries.
> 
> To avoid legal problems with GDAL binaries (libgis is GPL,
> not LGPL), the code would ideally be re-written from scratch
> (AIUI, FP and null support were added after the switch to GPL,
> so using the public-domain CERL code won't get you very far).
> 
> If anyone is interested in doing this, I can write up
> documentation of the file formats.


this seems like a reasonable and sound approach.
may I suggest to write up documentation in a form suitable for
easy Doxygen integration?

should clean-room author aim for MIT/X (full integration into
GDAL release) or LGPL (more in line with the spirit of our
project; continues as a GDAL plugin) ?


Hamish