[gdal-dev] GDAL Maintainers Meeting Minutes

[Howard Butler]

Howard Butler, Dan Baston, Alessandro Pasotti, Chris Toney, Michael Smith, Even Rouault, and Javier Jimenez Shaw held the monthly GDAL Maintainers Meeting on 04/23/2026. The following items were discussed and reported upon:

# Project News


## Releases
* Maintenance release GDAL 3.12.4 was released https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/releases/tag/v3.12.4 See https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/v3.12.4/NEWS.md for bug list and details
* GDAL 3.13.0b1 is now available. Preliminary release notes are available at https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/304c53e1298e3294c8b854a996103ad1ca8a131d/NEWS.md

## Conferences
* Even and Seth will be giving the GDAL Workshop at FOSS4GE in Timisoara, Romania on July 3rd, 2026. See https://2026.europe.foss4g.org/schedule/workshops/ for details and get your ticket at https://pretix.geo-spatial.org/foss4ge2026/timisoara2026/
* Howard's talk "Building the GDAL Sponsorship Program" was accepted for FOSS4G Hiroshima https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-2026/talk/review/FNSYDBBCF7LUPB77JHSGPUMUQV3NSNWB 

# Maintenance activities update

## Alessandro

* 27 PR reviews
* CLI argument dependencies to allow linking of arguments – no breaking change

## Seth 

(unable to attend but provided report via email)

* finalizing the projections tutorial at https://gdal.org/en/latest/tutorials/reprojecting_data.html
* updating the Conda master pipeline, so there is only one package per version (looks like it is all working now at https://anaconda.org/channels/gdal-master/packages/libgdal-core/files?versions=3.12.99)
* Doc: Add SPARSE_OK example to COG page: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14390
* Doc: Add raster clip example and update error message: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14384
* CI: Strip out any \r when running on Windows for Conda uploads: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14342
* CI: Add channel for windows and jq: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14339
* CI: Conda master builds remove duplicate versions: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14335
* Doc: Add PAM projection example: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14317
* Doc: Projections tutorial: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14285
* Doc: Add WCS examples: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14239
* Documentation clarifications over available pipeline parameters: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues/14389
* Doc: gdal vector check-geometry: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues/13844
* Doc: Add MSSQL Driver examples: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/14405

## Dan

Continuing GEOS curve support

* CLI argument consist'ification to use --input/--output instead of --src/--dest[ination]. Old incantations will still be allowed but hidden to encourage usage of input/output
* Polygonize, distance calc, and geometry splitting algorithms in OGR that leverage GEOS curve support

## Even

* 100+ items
* GDAL 3.12.4 release
* GDAL 3.13.0 b1 and b2 releases
* Claude Mythos security-related issues via private contact (mostly old HDF/EOS library)
* Even no longer reviewing vibe-coded stuff. Too easy to generate verbose code that is difficult to maintain relative to the rest of GDAL.
* Docker images now bumped to 26.06
* gdal driver geopackage validate
* document explaining differences between vsicurl/vsihttp/vsicurl_streaming
* libtiff security activities
* Planning to attend the June 18th arrow+parquet meetup in Paris

# Next Meeting

The next GDAL Maintainers Meeting is 05/28/2026 at 13:00 UTC. Project contributors should contact Howard Butler for an invite.

# Online Version

https://gist.github.com/hobu/5e8e454c34402629e823f8212374cf36

# Financial Support

* Support GDAL with a new t-shirt! Visit https://gdal.org/tshirt/ to purchase. Change your country preference on the bottom of the page. Profits from swag sales go directly to the GDAL Sponsorship Program via NumFOCUS! 
* Make an individual or corporate donation online https://numfocus.org/donate-to-gdal 
* Organize a contribution to the GDAL Sponsorship Program https://gdal.org/en/latest/sponsors/index.html#sponsorship-program