[gdal-dev] Re: [mapserver-dev] Design/Re-Design consideration

Frank Warmerdam warmerdam at pobox.com
Thu Apr 17 10:41:31 EDT 2008


Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I really like gdal and ogr. I can't say I use them all the time, but 
> they work and do the job when I need them and I would be lost without 
> them on some jobs. So Thanks and keep up the good work.
> 
> I want to toss out an idea that I think would make gdal/ogr better. This 
> comes from my frustration with the fact that as more formats are 
> supported, the more system library dependencies that are required to 
> install it. I was horrified when I went to build mapserver with wfs 
> support and I only use shapefiles on postgis layers that I had to 
> install gdal and that pulled in some 20-30 other system packages!!!!
> 
> This is insane from my perspective. I don't need any of those packages 
> for the work I'm doing, maybe mapserver should not require gdal for wfs, 
> but I'm sure there is a good reason for that choice.

Stephen,

Note, that you can build a minimalist GDAL if you want. I do it all the
time to keep size and complexity down.

Also, GDAL already supports runtime loadable plugins for formats, so this
can be used in packaging systems to reduce the number of dependencies of
the core libgdal.  This plugin mechanism is often used for stuff like
SDE, Oracle, MrSID and ECW dependencies.  It could be applied more widely.

PS. rather than a config.ini, we normally just determine which plugins
to load based on which ones are in the gdalplugins directory.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org



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