[Live-demo] Re: [OSGeo] #474: include postgis 1.4

[OSGeo]

#474: include postgis 1.4
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
  Reporter:  hamish       |       Owner:  live-demo at lists.osgeo.org
      Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new                      
  Priority:  normal       |   Component:  LiveDVD                  
Resolution:               |    Keywords:  postgis                  
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
Comment (by darkblueb):

 well, I've been the primary proponent of a 1.4 include, as people on the
 IRC know by now.. I wrote the stick figure script that pulled in a source
 tarball, compiled and installed it. It was very professionally enhanced by
 Hamish soon thereafter. I don't agree with the characterization that it
 was thrown in "late in the process" as when I wrote that, many full
 LiveDVD packages were completely dangling and dysfunctional still.

 I am a little overwhelmed by the attention to detail.. its a plug-in, not
 a lib. So it behaves as a "leaf" element, and has far less compatability
 implications than a lib, as far as I can see. However, given the a high
 quality product is everyone's goal, thorough is almost invariably better.

 I think there is a misconception running through the minds of many about
 how PostGIS is actually invoked. True it is a fundamental piece of
 technology. In no small part why I felt it was so important to have on the
 FOSS4G 2009 disk. But lets take two examples: OGR and the template.

 As far as I know, the OGR Pg driver is a libpq client of Postgres. That
 is, a connection is made via libpq and a DSN string. Nothing touches,
 links to, refers to, stands on top of, warmly shakes hands with or buys
 beer for any PostGIS anything, ever.

 Each database is its own world, by design. Think of a huge, high security
 shared installation. All Pg functions, including those that call actual
 .so code, are woven into the individual database through the Pg load
 process. PostGIS is just a collection of SQL and functions, most of which
 call a particular .so library on *nix, isolated in a database.

 As far as using the Postgis template, and needing one for 1.3 and 1.4, I
 think, with all due respect, thats simply splitting hairs. There is no
 standard for a PostGIS tempate.. any template that exists is up to
 whatever creates it and whatever else names it. That include PostGIS
 version used..  As far as I know, 1.3 users are 99.98% compatible with 1.4
 in practice. From anecdotal observation, I think any 1.3 user would be
 happy to move to 1.4. Upgrades are hard enough in the stodgy, risk-averse
 database world. Lets not exaggerate the picture if at all possible..

 Lastly, as far as the shp2pgsql binary.. This is the one legitimate issue
 as far as I am concerned.. and as already pointed out, I raised it within
 1 hour of writing the original script. My personal time and skill level
 was not up to the kind of analysis shown here by others as things
 unfolded. It was simply not tested to the satisfaction of one particular
 party, who unilaterally put a hold in the inclusion of PostGIS 1.4 on the
 disk. which yes, bugs me.. But they say, choose your battles... All in all
 this is a fantastic product, this LiveDVD, and a real thanks goes out to
 all, myself and my loyal adversary and everyone, for coming together to
 make this happen. It was tons of work to get a final. Everyone gets a
 little frazzled, myself included. I strive to maintain a civil approach,
 even as technical style and contributions sometimes do not mesh perfectly.

 I also look forward to PostGIS 1.4, especially the manual, to be
 prominently part of this excellent OSGeo production. I predict this
 LiveDVD will be very, very popular and influential in the near future.
 $0.02

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/474#comment:4>
OSGeo <http://www.osgeo.org/>
OSGeo committee and general foundation issue tracker.