[PROJ] Thoughts after PROJ 9.8.1

[Javier Jimenez Shaw]

Hi all

The last couple of weeks were definitely different than the normal and
quiet life in PROJ. As most of you already know, PROJ 9.8.0 was released on
March 2nd with the latest version of EPSG, as usual.

But days and weeks later we had some complains that some transformations
from CRS to CRS were not returning the expected results. The reason was not
a change in PROJ code itself, but an update from EPSG. Big changes
involving the datum ensemble ETRS89 in Europe.

Some people started complaining. People I have never seen active in the
mailing list. Suddenly, a quiet project became a big problem. Products were
going backwards to the previous version, 9.7.1, to avoid this problematic
release. PROJ was mentioned more than I have seen in previous years. Wow,
PROJ was important, but nobody was saying it when it was working!

Since we realized that the problem was not punctual but was affecting
several countries in Europe we decided that a quick bugfix release 9.8.1
was needed. In less than a week (including the Easter holidays) PROJ had a
release candidate that everybody could test (did they?).

I want to thank Even Rouault and Kristian Evers for their work to have
ready that release. In one week! I don't see other organizations or
companies reacting that fast (I will not mention any name). Reverting those
changes were not that easy.

In PROJ we already realized that we need other type of unit tests, that
involve the geodetic agencies. We are working on it.

Maybe PROJ's users -direct and indirect- should think how they can help or
contribute. For instance sponsoring (via GDAL Sponsorship program)
https://proj.org/en/stable/users.html#sponsors
I hope the geodetic agencies get involved to develop those unit tests (that
will check both PROJ and EPSG changes ;)

It is in the human nature to accept as normal things that work, and only
point them when they fail. These episodes help us to see that some
important things are not noticed, but they are still needed. We should care
them just a bit more.

Cheers
Javier.
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