[GRASS-dev] packagers' guidance on inclusion of small dataset into the GRASS GIS installation

[Moritz Lennert]

Hi Bas, Hi any other packages who might want to weigh in,

I have a small question concerning the best way to include a very small 
dataset into the distribution of GRASS GIS. We are currently working on 
the revamping of the GRASS GIS GUI startup experience, and have the 
currently proposed solution is that GRASS GIS could start up 
automatically creating a grassdata database and a default lat-long 
location which would contain just a simple NaturalEarth world country 
boundaries dataset.

In some OS (e.g. MS Windows), such a demolocation is included in the 
distribution, but in Debian it is deleted before installation (IIUC what 
happens in the rules file at [1]).

IIRC, Debian does normally not allow data to be distributed with 
binaries. One option would be to put the data directly into the Python 
code creating this location. Would that be acceptable for Debian ? What 
kind of solution would you recommend ?

Thanks for any hints you can give us !

Moritz



[1] 
https://salsa.debian.org/debian-gis-team/grass/-/blob/master/debian/rules#L199