Remove postgis_tiger_geocoder and address_standardizer from the PostGIS code base

[Greg Troxel]

"Regina Obe" <lr at pcorp.us> writes:

> I'd like to remove postgis_tiger_geocoder and address_standardizer from the
> PostGIS code base and spin those off as separate project repos.
> They would be still under the postgis gitea org, just not in PostGIS repo.
>
> 1) They don't really use the PostGIS regress/install machinery.  They use
> the PostgreSQL regress and make installcheck
> 2) The cycle at which we change these is different.
> a) postgis_tiger_geocoder changes whenever census data changes, so doesn't
> make sense to follow PostGIS release cycle. It also is all plpgsql code and
> doesn't use any of the newer functions of PostGIS so can work with pretty
> much any postgis version
> b) address_standardizer has no dependence what so ever on PostGIS core and
> the release cycle is much less frequent than postgis proper.
>
> How badly will this mess up work of packagers?

It will take some work, but in general having separate things separate
is good.  A user might want one and not the other, and it's far cleaner
to have 3 packages for 3 things, even if B and C depend on A.

Being in a separate repo (separate release tarballs really) is fine.  It
is also ok to be in a subdir of the main tarball with a disjoint build
system.

What's awkward is things being optional and having extra deps, so that
you have to decide at postgis build time if you want them or not.


So while there's some short-term work, this sounds like a very good
change to me.