[Qgis-developer] ECW!!!

[Ramon Andiñach]

On 15/03/2013, at 18:14 , Vincent Picavet wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>> I have to tried to install the latest versions of the ECW plug-in without
>> much success.
>> 
>> It is imperative that we have an ECW plug-in that is easy to install,
>> bug-free, and does what it does in ArcGIS.
> 
> You are free to sponsor the development and maintainance of such a tool.
> You are free as well to pay for the ECW licence.
> You are free to put pressure on ERDAS for them to make ECW available as 
> opensource and allow its distribution
> You are free to explain to your data provider that offering data in proprietary 
> formats is a bad idea
> You are free to finance a new open wavelet compression format
> 
>> I can understand Fred's frustration. Let's see a new plugin in OSGEO4W
>> sooner than later.
> 
> It's up to you then.

I had a nice big rant, because this really ticked me off but I'll bring it back to a few fairly simple points. 

1. This is not about throwing money at a problem. It's a legal quibble problem. After that it might be a money problem.
1a. More importantly, for the *user* this is about removing easy access to a feature. (Translation: It's a regression).
2. This an option, but the plugin still needs to be there.
3. The ECW Project Manager has been asked for an opinion (the PSC has a copy), and I do not see this as incompatible with OSGeo4W continuing to provide the ECW plugin.
4. My major data providers do not yet provide Jpeg2000 as a standard option. This leaves me with options of an ECW which can probably be processed one day and emailed the next; or any other option which will go on a hard drive and the postal service will sit on (or kick around) for a week before it gets to me.
5. Yes, I agree they're bad. But there's a heck of a lot of legacy ecw around, particularly in Australia. (There's a lot of doc and docx around too)
5a. GDAL does a much better job of turning ecw into something else than anything else I've seen. But if ecw isn't accessible, then the data is effectively lost.

It's not just up to me. It's also up to QGIS to work out what sort of uptake it wants. Particularly here in Australia there is a *lot* of existing ecw, for example at the first Australian QGIS forum, ECW use ran at around 90%. It will make it extremely difficult to show off QGIS if it can't be easily shown to handle their existing data. Once we have the foot in the door then we can start the weaning process.

-ramon.

In case this triggers the "don't say anything bad" email, I'm writing this from my involved *user* perspective.  I'm also writing in a QGIS advocate sense. I'm not meaning criticism, but I am meaning to express serious concern that this one decision will make both my life as a user and particularly as an advocate in Australia much harder.