[gdal-dev] Extended tab/mrr driver questions

[Mateusz Loskot]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 at 06:13, Nyall Dawson <nyall.dawson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> I just read this comment on the Pitney Bowes pull request regarding
> extended tab/mrr support:
>
> "After discussing with the GDAL PSC, we will be splitting this into
> two separate PRs for the two drivers. We will also be following the
> plugin model for both EFAL and MRR format driver."
> (https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/1882#issuecomment-563807100)
>
> Can anyone from gdal psc elaborate on this?

I can't give authoritative explanation myself
- I'm only aware of the public conversations on GitHub, Twitter and gdal-dev

> Why were they advised to
> follow the plugin model instead of doing the "right thing" and
> extending the existing tab driver?

Presumably, the piece of advice PB received was a (natural) consequence
of what they wrote in the description of their PR:

"They only load if the respective SDK's are present. These SDK's are
free to download (...)"

It means, if GDAL driver requires a binary SDK, then natural choice is
to develop such driver as a plug-in.

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net