[Qgis-developer] GRASS provider issue on OS X needs attention

[Giuseppe Sucameli]

Hi William,

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 5:32 PM, William Kyngesburye
<woklist at kyngchaos.com> wrote:
> http://hub.qgis.org/issues/3999
> Even so, it's not really an OS X problem - it's more of a
> conceptual problem: PROVIDERS AND PLUGINS ARE NOT
> SHARED LIBRARIES.

although this is not a OSX problem we also can't forget the GRASS
plugin works on the quite all the platforms except OSX.

We have 3 alternative options: 1. refactoring the provider+plugin
code at all, 2. choosing to drop it, 3. just keep it as it is.

The third option is the easier way, the current one. Even though it
not solve the problem it requires no additional effort.

The first option requires enough work. I tried to separate the grass
plugin and it's provider while I was in Zurich for the HF in
November, but the editing part of the grass plugin uses a lot of
methods defined in the provider so I threw in the towel.

The second one instead can be done with just few changes, but
IMHO it's mindless to drop it without any good reason,
furthermore considering it works on the other platforms.

> Even though I don't use GRASS in QGIS, I'd hate to see a 1.8
> release with partially working GRASS support.

I understand your point of view, but if OSX users agree the plugin
is useful they should also consider to sponsor the fix.

Regards.

-- 
Giuseppe Sucameli