[GRASS-dev] future of GRASS for Windows [was: Re: [GRASS-SVN] r60679 - grass/trunk/lib/python/script]

[Moritz Lennert]

[Starting a new thread as this is an important point on its own. 
Original mail is [1].]

On 02/07/14 01:10, Glynn Clements wrote:> But in the longer term, should 
we be claiming to support a platform
 > for which we appear to have no active developers?

I think that the question merits discussion. In my teaching experience 
it has been very helpful to have a MS Windows version to allow students 
with MS Windows machines to install the software on these machines. I 
also have colleagues who, for different reasons, are quite resistant to 
installing another OS on their machines, but would like to use GRASS. 
So, generally, I think that there should be a MS Windows port of GRASS.

At the same time, with machines becoming more powerful and 
virtualization becoming a standard feature, one could argue that we 
should rather support a OSGEO, linux-based virtual machine that any 
windows user can install and run easily, without having to try to solve 
problems on an OS that no (or very few) developer actually uses, which 
in the past has lead to a series of sub-optimal hacks and conflicts 
between developers.

No clear opinion on my side, but I think we should approach this 
question without taboo and try to see advantages and disadvantages of 
each solution.

Moritz

[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2014-July/069871.html