[postgis-devel] Vote on Merging postgis and raster installs and when

[Paragon Corporation]

> I'm not a big fan of monolithic systems.
I am -- I hate stuff I can't count on not being there especially if I don't
have the ability to compile my own.
E.g. it drives me nuts when the packager decides to package an antiquated
GEOS and half the things I need
are disabled as a result. The same I see with raster. 

> What's the rationale for forcing anyone who only needs 
> vectors to also have support for rasters ? 
> 
 Even for projects I won't really need core raster 
for, I plan to use it for in the database reporting -- e.g. outputting
geometries in my report writer without need 
for extra mapping software.


> Seems more of a packaging issue to me, and I see packagers 
> usually do more splitting than upstream (breaking packages in 
> -core, -dev, -utils, -doc, ...)

Well - I need to know now.  Because when I had raster as a separate
extension, I distinctly remember
Paul saying -- "Why don't you have it as part of postgis extension?"

So I merged them.  I can't have some postgis 2.0.0 extensions having raster
support and some not. Since an extension is
more than packaging.  It means -- these are the functions you have -- no
pick and choose.  If it is then it has to be a separate extension.

For PostGIS 2.0.0 -- raster is a big piece of it.  It would be a shame for
people to not get vector support just
because their package manager felt they didn't need it.  Trust me there will
be some of those and it will be the same annoying issue
I have to deal with when I have to compile my own PostGIS  because the
packager decided I didn't need all my functions and gave  me a
half-assed version of GEOS.

Thanks,
REgina