[gdal-dev] GDAL Maintainers Meeting Minutes

[Howard Butler]

Howard Butler, Even Rouault, Dan Baston, Alessandro Pasotti, and Javier Jimenez Shaw held the monthly GDAL Maintainers Meeting on 11/28/2024. The following items were discussed and reported upon:

Sponsorship Activity
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* Planet has renewed for 2024 as a Gold sponsor. Thanks again Planet for your organization's continued sustaining support of the GDAL Maintenance Program!
* Microsoft has renewed for 2024 as a Gold sponsor. Thanks again Microsoft for your organization's continued sustaining support of the GDAL Maintenance Program!

Users Survey
----------------------------

The first GDAL Users Survey was circulated last month. Dan Baston has written up a nice summary of the findings of the survey at https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/user_survey_2024.html 

The key findings:

* Moar docs!
* GeoTIFF dominates raster usage, but vector formats are not dominated by one format
* Command line is the primary usage interface for most people to GDAL, but it is time for a refactor. See https://gdal--11216.org.readthedocs.build/en/11216/development/rfc/rfc104_gdal_cli.html  for the start on that effort.
* Binary builds and packaging are a consistent challenge
* Two people claimed to have Frank Warmerdam -level experience with GDAL :) 

Thank you so much if you took the time to contribute. Expect another survey next year.

Maintenance activities update
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Alessandro

* PR reviews
* RFC 103 – OGR_SCHEMA field definition overrides for vector schemas https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11071 

Dan

* Managed pointer (shared_ptr, unique_ptr) implementations in parts of the codebase where they can improve memory management behavior
* VRT expression implementation prototype, including VRT pixel function and processed VRT capabilities https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11209
* Sphinx extension to organize and cross-reference usage examples
* User survey summary https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/user_survey_2024.html#survey-2024

Even

* 90+ ticket activity and reviews
* GDAL 3.10.0 released November 6th, 2024 https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/releases/tag/v3.10.0
* GDAL 3.10.1 expected January or Feburary 2025
* Updated CI to track master branches of key dependencies like SWIG to provide surveillance of upcoming impacts
* Enhanced documentation of how to provide an RFC https://gdal.org/en/latest/development/rfc_process.html 
* MyST https://myst-parser.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ now possible with GDAL docs including Jupyterbook 
* RFC 104 the 'gdal' CLI https://gdal--11216.org.readthedocs.build/en/11216/development/rfc/rfc104_gdal_cli.html 
* Docs now track the 'stable' tag, which is automatically updated to the latest release branch commit.
* Discussion about potential Phase One driver submission and inclusion
* FOSS4GE talk, State of GDAL, now up on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0S2ooogwMM 


Javier

* FOSS4GE talk, Introduction to Vertical Coordinate Systems now up on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tELPb9G64zU 


The next GDAL Maintainers Meeting is 12/19/2024 at 13:00 UTC (one week earlier than typical schedule to move it ahead of the holidays). Any GDAL PR contributors are welcome to join by reaching out to me for an invite.

Howard