[gdal-dev] Early GDAL 2.4.0 release ?

[Even Rouault]

Hi,

I've been considering an early GDAL 2.4.0 release for the end of this year 
instead of the traditionnal mid-April / May target.

The rationale is that the work related to the GDAL/PROJ SRS revamp effort (aka 
"GDAL barn": https://gdalbarn.com/) will probably require non-null integration 
work from GDAL users, which will unnecessarily delay the "time-to-market" of 
features currently in GDAL master.

I've just began integrating the PROJ changes in a GDAL branch of mine and the 
current and future changes can be classified in the following categories:
- for sure: behaviour changes. exportToWKT() / exportToProj4() will for 
example return different strings. Most of the time equivalent, but nonetheless 
different, which can break other software unit tests
- probable: some OGRSpatialReference methods / OSR functions might be removed, 
or become no-operation
- uncertain at this point: impact of being axis order and unit compliant with 
the CRS definition from the authority.

I'd like the GDAL 2.5.0 release that will integrate the GDAL barn work to 
still be scheduled for mid-April / May date, and with my branch being 
hopefully ready for being merged into master in January.

A temptative schedule for 2.4.0 might be:

- December 14th: GDAL 2.4.0RC1 (I believe master is mature enough to go to RC 
stage directly, with no/very few changes affecting backward compatibility, but 
this is just from memory. The updated NEWS would help to confirm, but creating 
it is the bulk of the release work), likely coupled with a GDAL 2.3.3RC1 that 
would be the final point release for the GDAL 2.3 series

- December 21th: GDAL 2.4.0final

Thoughts ? Ah, and the release manager role is still open for volunteers (or 
any help, particularly updating NEWS, would be appreciated)

Even

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