[gdal-dev] Discussion of Xerces-C++ project health and possibility of retirement

[Even Rouault]

Hi,

FYI see threads "Discussion of Xerces-C++ project health and possibility 
of retirement" and "Prepping a 3.2.4 release" at 
https://lists.apache.org/list.html?c-dev@xerces.apache.org

In short, the Xerces-C++ project GDAL depends for a few drivers is 
considered to be moved into https://attic.apache.org/ , which is for 
end-of-life projects, due to lack of maintainers.

Current GDAL use of Xerces-C++:

- in GML driver. but the Expat XML parser is also already implemented 
with similar capabilities, so no issue here

- in NAS driver. requirement for NAS driver. That said, I presume Expat 
could be used, as only XML parser capabilities are used AFAIK, pending 
some work of course.

- in ILI driver. Same as NAS

- in GMLAS driver. Xerces-C++ dependency is critical here. Not only its 
XML parsing capabilities are used, as well as its XML Schema validation 
ones, but the driver strongly depends on using XML Schema grammar 
analysis classes of Xerces-C++ to fully understand the XML schema 
constructs. As far as I know, no other C/C++ XML open source libraries 
have such capabilities.

While a no-longer-maintained-at-all Xerces-C++ is likely not an 
immediate risk for GDAL, it could cause troubles in the medium/long 
term: no functional or security fixes, issues with compilation with 
newer compilers, etc.

Even


http://www.spatialys.com
My software is free, but my time generally not.