Shared Library Naming, and the next major release

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

For the record, it is my intent to implement support for libgdal.so.n.n.n
type naming for a GDAL/OGR 1.2 release sometime in late summer. I hope to have
pre-releases available sometime in july for all the packaging folks to try
out and comment on. It may take a few iterations to get things right.

That said:
o The maximized backward compatibility will focus on the C interface, but
the version numbers should make it easier to get get the right shared
library to match a given C++ interface.

o I am likely to implement at least a partial C API for OGR. Partly this is
to simplify OGR integration into the core of GRASS, and once done I would
try to provide similar backward compatibility guarantees for the C OGR
interface as for the GDAL C interface.

o I *might* even take a whack at integrating GDAL and OGR more closely with
a common concept of drivers, metadata services, capabilities and so forth.
The best time to do this would be before committing to a OGR C API. If I
do so there will be substantial compatibility issues introduced with regard
to OGRLayer, OGRDataSource and OGRDrivers. OGRFeatures, OGRGeometry and
OGRSpatialReference should be essentially unaffected.

o I have no intention of using libtool for the shared library building, so
it is unlikely that I will do all the sophisticated shared library stuff
on all platforms. However, I will try to ensure it works well on systems
with a GNU tool chain (gcc and GNU ld).

o I will also try to address at least a similar naming convention for DLLs on
Windows. However, without soft links and stuff, I am not sure that this
will help as much with DLL version hell as the naming stuff, and -soname
stuff on Linux.

I am unlikely to get much work done on this for the next 3-4 weeks, but folks
are encouraged to poke me again by mid July to check for progress.

Best regards,

-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at p...
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent