[postgis-devel] postgis extension sans raster (only for folks who can't compile with raster support) - PSC Vote and developer/packager comments please

[Paragon Corporation]

Strk,

Not really it's very much Regina's style.  I always put the needs of users first even if it means a bit of discomfort for us. So that generally means put in as much as possible in the package if most folks will be getting from package maintainers.

In this case, there is relatively little discomfort on our end because only one additional path will be added. Also the extension is an either (not an or).

When we put raster as part of the core postgis, there were 3 considerations for me:

1) extensions was a relatively new thing so it didn’t' seem like big deal to stuff raster in there which was also a new thing
2) I was thinking if PostGIS windows was the only distribution to carry raster that would really suck (as it does for postgis_sfcgal at the moment). Cause we spent so much time documenting and funding raster.
A lot of users develop on windows and deploy on Linux, so it would especially suck to find out windows is better and they are stuck having to compile everything they want themselves :)

3) I didn't realize packaging raster was such a big deal on Unix/Linux.  I didn't realize how many Linux packagers stand on the shoulders of other turtles so they are forced to drag in extra things if upstream does and the experience of users because they get bits 
>From different repos would be somewhat unpleasant.

So in my mind this change

1) changes nothing for existing users, makes it easier for people who can't get GDAL to still use the same instructions for  installing postgis like everyone else.
2) As an instructor, making sure I can give you the same set of instructions to install and get going regardless what operating system you are on is really really important to me as these detours of (if you don't have raster -- here is who you find where your scripts are installed is a big PITA)

True for those folks who really want raster and their packager doesn't carry it, they'll be forced to compile themselves.  Hopefully that group of people is relatively small and most packagers will still prefer to compile with raster support if they can.

I'm against supporting multiple versions of libraries (and thus spinning liblwgeom out so PostGIS is forced to link to it from elsewhere) because, it's a big PITA for users in my opinion.  It increases the chances of dependcy hell.


Thanks,
Regina


 

-----Original Message-----
From: postgis-devel [mailto:postgis-devel-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Sandro Santilli
Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2015 6:49 AM
To: PostGIS Development Discussion <postgis-devel at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [postgis-devel] postgis extension sans raster (only for folks who can't compile with raster support) - PSC Vote and developer/packager comments please

On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 02:14:03PM -0400, Paragon Corporation wrote:

> https://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/ticket/3338

[...]

> What do folks think about this? Am I nuts or is this a great idea?
> 
> If all are for it, I'm willing to do the work to make it happen for 
> 2.3.0

-0.
I'm curious to see what you come up with, but afraid of the added complexity in the upgrade paths and packaging that would need to be supported.

It's curious you propose this, while you usually complain of having too many variables with supporting multiple versions of dynamically linked libraries :)

--strk;
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