[Live-demo] Re: GIS RPMs for Enterprise Linux (RHEL/CentOS/ScientificLinux)

[Cameron Shorter]

Hello Mathieu,
Tyler, thanks for the introduction.

As Tyler mentioned, the OSGeo Live DVD project builds a LiveDVD based 
upon an Xubuntu system.
Of value to you, is that project leads have written, and continue to 
maintain, bash install scripts for ~ 35 GIS packages, which should make 
it much easier to build RPMs.

Details about the project are at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
I suggest following links to our build process, list of projects and 
contacts, and our svn.

At the moment, I'm writing up the OSGeo marketing pipeline, and defining 
what is required from Geospatial projects to help OSGeo promote them. 
Once your RPM project kicks off, I suggest adding your details in here.

Of particular note:
* We wish to make it as easy as possible for projects to contribute to 
marketing/packaging efforts as possible. So any sharing we can do 
between packaging efforts would be great. (Eg, lets share Definition 
files, documentation files, examples etc)


Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
> Hello Mathieu,
> Thank you for writing!  Indeed if it can be coordianted through OSGeo, 
> I think it would be highly successful.  I think the place it is being 
> discussed the most is through our live dvd creation (ubuntu based) 
> project.  I'm cc'ing Alex and Cameron to get their thoughts on whether 
> the livedvd project is where it should be discussed or not.
>
> Aside from that, I think many people on our main "discuss" mailing 
> list would be very interested.  There may have been some movement on 
> the topic already and your note might help bring them all together.
>
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
> I can help support you by creating a mailing list when needed (if 
> enough people on discuss are interested) and by helping connect you to 
> specific people I know might care.
>
> Personally, having packages ready for RHEL is critical for further 
> enterprise penetration, so will help in guiding you as best I can.
>
> Tyler
>
> On 05/01/2010 05:17 AM, Mathieu Baudier wrote:
>> (I found your mail on the OSGeo contact page, this message was to long
>> to be sent via the form)
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> it has been a few months that we are working on packaging the latest
>> stable versions of some useful GIS libraries and software for CentOS 5
>> (see below for details).
>>
>> The goal is to have a solid but up to date GIS stack for the desktop
>> as well as the server under RHEL/CentOS/ScientificLinux (we tested
>> only CentOS so far).
>>
>> Most of the effort consisted in rebuilding/repackaging recent Fedora
>> SRPMs, some being more difficult than others because of the older
>> libraries included in RHEL 5.
>> We looked closely at the Debian GIS project (and the related Ubuntu
>> GIS project) and are more or less tracking their versions. One goal is
>> to be able to switch quickly from one distribution to the other while
>> using the same GIS software stack.
>> We already had some informal contacts with community members who
>> contributed RPM spec files.
>>
>> After having tested the approach for a few months and with RHEL 6
>> around the corner (the beta is already available), we would like to
>> see how to contribute this effort to the community and make it
>> something more public and shared (and thus more useful for everybody).
>>
>> In http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Binary_Distribution you say that
>> there is currently no centralized effort in the RPM community.
>>
>> Our idea would to focus on Enterprise Linux derivatives and to
>> centralize knowledge and approaches (not just provide RPMs).
>> In addition we could maintain and provide a set of RPMs when needed,
>> based on what we have done already.
>>
>> There are already efforts going on in this field and we want to
>> synchronize with them, not duplicate what they are doing:
>> - a Fedora SIG: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/GIS
>> - the EPEL repository: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL
>> - PostgreSQL for Enterprise Linux: http://yum.pgrpms.org/
>>
>> The problem with the EPEL is that they cannot include software which
>> requires to upgrade the base system.
>> For those packages who don't require upgrades of the core, the best
>> solution would be to maintain up to date versions there (we already
>> had contacts with EPEL maintainers).
>> But sometime more flexibility is needed, e.g. for PostGIS, people
>> sometimes don't want to upgrade from 1.3 to 1.5 because of language
>> changes, even if if woudl be possible.
>>
>> OSGeo seems the best place to centralize this effort, would you be 
>> interested?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Mathieu Baudier
>>
>> * Requiring no changes in the base distribution (depends on EPEL)
>> http://www.argeo.org/linux/argeo-el/5/gis/SRPMS/
>> - gdal (1.6.3)
>> - geos (3.2.0)
>> - grass (6.2.3 and 6.4.0RC6)
>> - mapserver (5.6.0)
>> - postgis (1.3.6)
>> - proj (4.7.0)
>>
>> * Requiring changes in the base distribution (depends on EPEL,
>> PostgresqlRPM and Argeo Plus)
>> http://www.argeo.org/linux/argeo-el/5/gis-plus/SRPMS/
>> - qgis (1.0.2 and 1.4.0)
>> - postgis (1.4.1 and 1.5.1)
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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