[Gdal-dev] Re: Proposal for Unified Windows Binaries

[Roger Bivand]

Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam <at> pobox.com> writes:
> 
> Tamas Szekeres wrote:
> > But I would completely disagree if we would want to take out the
> > binaries of the scripting interfaces and let the user to create this
> > code by hand or obtain the corresponding bundle from a different
> > location. Instead, I would extend the pactice for adding these
> > binaries for all of the bindings in a more unique way. For example
> > adding some common makefile targets to create the code for this
> > purpose, and allow the interface maintainers to decide which files
> > should be included in the package and to which location.
> 
> Tamas,
> 
> I don't think Howard was proposing any changes to the makefiles.
> But rather that the "core component" we would build on would be
> the GDAL/OGR C++ core, the C API, plus all the drivers that have
> odd requirements built as plugins so they are optional.  Stuff that
> depends on external DLLs, has runtime requirements, etc.


Just a brief comment: the native Windows GRASS build is MSYS/MinGW, as is 
rgdal, the R/GDAL interface package. The latter is using MSYS/MinGW builds of 
proj4 and GDAL to internalise external dependencies, so that the R archive 
network can distribute a complete package built automatically. Users with the 
skill needed have used FWTools DLLs, but always meet the issue that VC* 
compiled DLLs reset the FP precision to 64 bit from 80 bit on i386; MinGW has 
been house-trained and doesn't do that. The WinGRASS people (very few) may not 
have the capacity to try to switch to VC* build trains.

Best wishes,

Roger