[Qgis-developer] OSX packages

[Larry Shaffer]

Hi Paolo,


On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 9:12 AM, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
wrote:

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> Hi all.
> I have seen Boundless is offering a nice bundled package for OSX: do
> we have any plan to use that one, or to merge their work with that of
> kingchaos, or any other option?
>

Disclosure: I am currently working for Boundless, helping with their new
QGIS support offering [0].

While the Boundless QGIS OS X package is standalone, offering a nice
drag-drop install, there are several reasons why the QGIS project may not
wish to rely upon it for its general OS X release.

* It is branded as a third-party distribution (see splash screen).

* It is produced by a commercial third-party entity using their resources
and on their schedule.

* It may be built from custom branches that include interim features not
present in the official releases.

Each of these points makes sense for an entity looking to make inroads
towards enterprise adoption of QGIS, but are not, or may not be, in line
with the QGIS project's goals, per se.

There may also be the appearance of a conflict of interest, or unfair
advantage, if QGIS releases for any OS come from a particular commercial
entity who offers paid support. However, this does seem to work with
Canonical and Ubuntu, for example.

If the PSC wishes so, I could offer to be a liaison with Boundless and
present such a OS X general release proposal to them.


With regards as to the reason why the Boundless QGIS offering is a nice,
tidy package, it stems from the work their packager, Michael Weisman, has
done. After the release of 2.6, I believe he and I will look at how to push
his CMake bundling changes (using CMake's BundleUtilities [2]) upstream to
master. Once such a bundling setup is in core, anyone can produce a
standalone QGIS bundle from the standard source tree, including the QGIS
project itself.

For the past year or so, I have been working on a project towards this
goal, OSGe4Mac [3]. Based upon the Homebrew Mac OS X packager [4] (e.g.
apt-get for Mac), it allows for quickly building all QGIS dependencies, in
support for bundling and other goals. This will have the following
advantages:

* QGIS stable and nightlies can readily be built, packaged and released on
OSGeo resources, by any Mac developer.

* Dependencies can quickly be provisioned to a Mac OS X virtual machine for
continuous integration setups.

* A fairly complete OSGeo toolset can be released as a single DMG (Mac disk
image), aiding workshops, etc.

* An OSGeo4Mac installer (very similar to OSGeo4W) can be built off of Qt's
Installer framework [5] to do on-line or locally distributed Mac OS X
installs.

Towards this goal, I have been in contact with the OSGeo System
Administration Committee chair, Alex Mandel, about setting up a **Mac build
server**. I am willing to donate all of the necessary Mac OS X software and
pre-configured virtual machines (all the work I am already doing on my Macs
for the QGIS nightlies).

Would the QGIS PSC be interested in providing any financial support towards
buying a Mac Mini build server for OSGeo, used initially for building QGIS?
Anything in the $1,000-2,000 USD range would greatly help out. I will be
adding the proposal to the 2014 infrastructure plan [6].

[0] http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/09/announcing-qgis-support/
[2] http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/BundleUtilities.html
[3] https://github.com/OSGeo/homebrew-osgeo4mac
[4] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew
[5] https://qt-project.org/doc/qtinstallerframework-1.5/index.html
[6] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Transition_Plan_2014

Regards,

Larry Shaffer
Dakota Cartography
Black Hills, South Dakota



> All the best, and thanks.
> - --
> Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu
> QGIS & PostGIS courses: http://www.faunalia.eu/training.html
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