[Gdal-dev] GDAL and ECW compressor of the new 3.1 SDK

[Frank Warmerdam]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:21:43 +0100, Armin Burger <armin.burger at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> I downloaded the latest version of the FWTools (0.9.5) that has the new ECW compressor from the SDK 3.1 included. It seems that also this version has the 500 MB limitation of uncompressed source files for writing ECW.
> 
> As I understood from the new license possibilities of ERM is that Open Source software can make use of the unlimited version:
> 
> "GPL-style license: A free license, providing unlimited read/unlimited compression  for ECW and JPEG 2000 in any GPL style application."
> 
> Will GDAL move towards using this license version and then include the unlimited compression to ECW/JP2000?

Armin, 

The issue isn't in GDAL itself, it is really a question of what build of the
libraries will be included in FWTools.  Currently I used the 3.1 library
build provided on the ERMapper web site, which I gather is preconfigured
to enforce the 500MB compress restriction.  I hadn't been intending to 
build the ECW SDK from source on win32 if I could avoid it, but this might
be a reason to do so. 

Of course, it is also possible there is some call I can make with the
pre-built version that will let me compress larger than 500MB files. 

If you submit a bugzilla report against FWTools, I will look into the issue
but no promises on a timeline. 

Best regards,
-- 
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