[gdal-dev] Docker - was Re: Motion: remove and deprecate a few drivers

[Robert Coup]

Hi Andrew,

On Sat, 6 Mar 2021 at 14:36, Andrew C Aitchison <andrew at aitchison.me.uk> wrote:
> If, in five, ten, fifteen or even twenty five years, I don't have
> hardware that can run an existing docker image, then I'm less sure that
> docker is the answer. Will I have to rely on someone having made that
> Apple-ARM docker image of GDAL 3.2.2 back in 2021 ?

Again, Docker's a shortcut.

You can always build GDAL binaries from the 3.2.2 source in future as
long as you can find a C/C++ compiler with a matching libc
implementation. It might be simpler if it was GCC or LLVM/Clang or
MSVC but you can feasibly make it work with any future compiler with
(hopefully) limited effort. Likewise, if the compiler supports a
future CPU architecture it should build & work with (hopefully)
limited effort. Or run it via an emulator, given how ubiquitous x86 is
they'll probably still be emulating it in another 100 years.

Currently (for example) Debian builds and packages GDAL releases for
amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, i386, mips, mips64el, mipsel, ppc64el, and
s390x. And GDAL builds every commit in CI against 32 + 64 bit Linux
(with both GCC & Clang), macOS, Windows, and Android. There's no
shortage of supported CPU architectures, compilers, and operating
systems at present.

And worst-case, if C++ is long gone, future-you or your AI helper
could port the code to some other language.

Rob :)