[postgis-devel] PostGIS 2.5 what should be minimum requirements?

[Regina Obe]

>On 09/29/2017 06:28 PM, Darafei "Kom?pa" Praliaskouski wrote:
>> Please don't hesitate to raise minimum versions to latest released at 
>> the time of release.
>> If someone needs an older version, they are free to comment out the 
>> checks and build at their own risk.
>> Otherwise we're going to have distros with older versions of 
>> libraries, because "it's not required to upgrade so let's not".

> Or distributions are forced to stick to older versions of the libraries because the newer versions cannot be integrated properly with all their reverse dependencies. As is currently the case for GEOS >= 3.6.

That's why I'm not pushing GEOS >= 3.6.  I know that packagers at least in past had issue with upgrading GEOS 3.6 because of osm2pgsql referencing c++ apis instead of geos c-api.
Though I thought that issue was resolved since.  Perhaps not.

I have also in past run into nasty errors with for example installing mapnik from ports  on freebsd and it being bound to PostgreSQL 9.3 or some such thus forcing me to be stuck with that version.
Anyway I digress.

I don't want to necessarily enforce a minimum version unless it's paining us as  project to do so or users are getting limited benefit with upgrading if all the new features we are putting in can only be used by newer PostgreSQL and newer GEOS
which I feel is the case with PostgreSQL and GEOS.  That said Dan's rule of thumb idea is a good one, cause I think 2-3 years of GEOS / PostgreSQL is about the point where things start getting painful.

So will be the case with proj  -- Mat - I'll be on the look out for that.  Looks like most packagers are running proj 4.8.0 or proj 4.9 and cases where they are running older, it's usually for older versions of PostGIS / PostgreSQL.


> Distributions want newer library versions because they contain bugfixes required for toolchain updates and the like.

GDAL I'd like to bump up to GDAL 2+, though that might just stay as a warning recommendation.  This is part not because I feel we need newer functionality, but more because I know Even and his group have put in a lot of work in increasing stability and much of that is in newer GDAL.  Greg Troxel mentioned for example his build crashed with lower GDAL (I think it was a pre-2.0, but was fine with GDAL 2.1 ).

I'm also appalled that a lot of Linux distros are still running GDAL 1.* but I suspect that's because of the many reverse dependencies you mentioned to keep happy.

>  If distributions stick to old library versions not due to the above, it's most likely caused by lack of manpower to work on those packages.
> Kind Regards,

> Bas

I'm pretty concerned about this as I feel packagers are under appreciated.  It would be nice if we can come up with some way to fund some of these efforts.  
That would both help all projects and minimize on packagers getting burned out.  But that's a topic for another day.


Thanks,
Regina