[geos-devel] Drop SWIG bindings

[Mike Taves]

Hi all,

SWIG bindings have existed as part of the core GEOS library since
early development, however they have not received much attention in
many years.

I've (quickly) prepared two options for consideration:

Option one: Drop Python SWIG bindings
https://github.com/mwtoews/geos/pull/1

This keeps the SWIG interface for Ruby bindings, which is packed by
(e.g.) Ubuntu; see https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/ruby/ruby-geos
However, it drops the unsupported Python 2 SWIG bindings. Python users
can use either Shapely or PyGEOS.

Option two: Drop SWIG bindings, including for Ruby and Python
https://github.com/mwtoews/geos/pull/2

This drops the whole SWIG interface.
Note that Ruby users can access GEOS bindings via RGeo
https://github.com/rgeo/rgeo, which has a steady history of active
contributions; see https://github.com/rgeo/rgeo/graphs/contributors
Another idea is to move the SWIG Ruby bindings into a separate repo,
similar to php-geos https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/geos/php-geos, however
this would require a volunteer to step in.

Any thoughts to either proposal? And if so, whether this should happen
before or after the next release?