<div dir="ltr"><div><div><br>Hi Cameron,<br><br>I agree with your assessment - at this stage it is likely that the majority of the current users of OSGeo Live will not derive an immediate benefit from Iris, and therefore we do not need to make a fuss about the addition in the documentation.<br>
<br></div>The other side of the argument is that we expect to increase the number of new users of OSGeo Live who are working in meteorology, climate sciences and research - particularly those who work with what are perceived as the "awkward set of GIS files", e.g. NetCDF and other lesser known formats. These new users will benefit greatly from having a direct link to other OSGeo projects. Our NetCDF -> Raster conversion is many times more powerful and flexible than the basic support that is currently available in GDAL (not to mention the frustratingly basic tools that are available in common proprietary packages)<br>
<br></div><div>We'll go ahead and produce the quickstart and documentation - but we're happy for you to decide nearer the release which path would be in the best interest of OSGeo Live. As you say, linking can easily be added on a later release.<br>
</div><div><br></div><div>Many thanks<br><br>Ian<br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:49 PM, Cameron Shorter <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com" target="_blank">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div>Ian,<br>
Based upon comments so far, I believe that we should certainly
include Iris should be included on OSGeo-Live, such that you can
use OSGeo-Live in your foss4g workshops.<br>
<br>
I'm personally think that we should hold off on linking IRIS into
our main documentation until a future release, after IRIS has
built up more of a community, however I'm open to being convinced
otherwise.<br>
<br>
On 13/06/13 21:32, Ian Edwards wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Thank you all for the comments (and
for the offers of support)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The issues that Cameron raises are
very
important, and as a user of OSGeo Live I personally agree that
each
of these points should be carefully considered.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">1. Is the project too specialised
for
the vast majority of people who pick up OSGeo-Live?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Iris is powerful and specialised
but it
also has benefits for the whole range of OSGeo Live users. Our
workshop at FOSS4G 2013 is aimed at both experienced
developers and
at complete beginners (e.g. users who are new to python)
<a href="http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops#W15" target="_blank">http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops#W15</a>.
In the workshop we will demonstrate how the underlying
plotting
library (based on python's matplotlib) can be used for batch
processing of multiple cartographic plots for any use case.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">As a comparison: WCS is perceived
as
complex and specialist compared to WMS. Libraries such as Iris
have a
very important role to play for handling multidimensional data
(including detailed meta data within the file) from many
sources and
fit well with both OGC standards and other OSGeo packages.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">2. Is it seriously used outside of
UK
Met Office?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Massimo has given one independent
example of Iris being in use internationally, his message to
the list also shares
our excitement about integration into the OSGeo stack (we have
use
cases for ncWMS, GeoServer, PyCSW and ZOO-Project and it's
likely
that either we, or the community, will develop a QGIS plugin
to
provide an easier interface to the library). The development
of the software (and the LGPL licence) was specifically to
enable use outside of the Met Office and to promote easy
collaboration among users.<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">3. We need to be careful that we
don't
include every project looking for a community</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">I agree with this statement the
most. In this case we're not looking for a community/home –
we're
interested in integrating with the rest of the open source
stack that
we belong to, and in supporting the community to work
effectively with
emerging technologies like WCS 2.0 and NetCDF.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">4. Maybe IRIS would be a better
candidate to join OSGeo-Live in a future release?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The case will certainly be stronger
when we can demonstrate many examples of Iris integrating into
the
full software stack. Our reason for applying now is because a)
integration work is already well under way, but it will be
easier
(for the rest of the community) by making the library easily
available alongside the rest of the stack, b) we want to
ensure the
software is available alongside GeoServer and QGIS for our
FOSS4G
workshop – we could make our own live DVD... but it would be
based on
OSGeo Live and we'd loose the benefit of having the library
available to other conference attendees who are interested in
the presentations and also the wider OSGeo community.<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><br>
</p>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 9:17 AM, Hamish
<span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hamish_b@yahoo.com" target="_blank">hamish_b@yahoo.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>Cameron wrote:<br>
> Maybe IRIS would be a better<br>
> candidate to join OSGeo-Live in a future release?<br>
<br>
</div>
IRIS 1.3 needed 3.3mb of disk space. I assume 1.4.0 is not
too<br>
dissimilar, and that the support and demo files don't alter
that<br>
requirement drastically.<br>
<br>
We just managed to free up 150-200mb disk space (shared libs
for<br>
MB-System amongst others), and I will sponsor and take care
of<br>
adding an install_iris.sh script on the disc for the
Nottingham<br>
workshop if one is provided to me.<br>
<br>
you guys can figure out if you want an overview page for it
or not<br>
linked on the front page list of projects, but it's a bit of
a<br>
no-brainer to me to install the software and a quickstart
(linked<br>
or not) in the background regardless.<br>
<br>
<br>
regards,<br>
Hamish<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
</font></span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
</font></span></blockquote><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: <a href="tel:%2B61%20%280%292%208570%205050" value="+61285705050" target="_blank">+61 (0)2 8570 5050</a>
Mob: <a href="tel:%2B61%20%280%29419%20142%20254" value="+61419142254" target="_blank">+61 (0)419 142 254</a>
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a href="http://www.lisasoft.com" target="_blank">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
</pre>
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