[QGIS-Developer] Support to loading GIS projects from an extended OWC geopackage in the QGIS core

[doublebyte]

Hello,

Maybe some of you are aware of the  "geopackage" plugin
<https://eos.geocat.net/gitlab/joana.simoes/foss4g_gpkg/blob/master/foss4g_gpkg.pdf> 
.The initial goal of this plugin was to enable users to save their QGIS
projects, including style and associated resources
 in a extended geopackage -  the qgis geopackage extension
<https://github.com/pka/qgpkg/blob/master/qgis_geopackage_extension.md>   -,
and load it onto another QGIS installation; on this approach, the project is
encoded as qgs, in a database table. Later the plugin was forked to support
a different geopackage exension -  the owc geopackage extension
<https://github.com/pka/qgpkg/blob/master/owc_geopackage_extension.md>   - ,
which is standards-based; in this  approach
<https://www.geocat.net/announcing-the-extended-geopackage-qgis-plugin/>  ,
the style is encoded as OGC:SLD and the project as OGC:OWS context. The goal
of this approach is to support the migration of GIS projects, as we can
implement this extension in any desktop or server side GIS (e.g.: ArcGIS
Desktop).

The fork was merged in August this year, and the latest release of the 
plugin <https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/QgisGeopackage/>   already contains
both extensions, covering both use cases of porting QGIS projects and
migrating GIS projects. Recently, it was added  support in the core to the 
"qgis geopackage extension"
<https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/blob/master/src/providers/ogr/qgsogrprovider.cpp#L762> 
, in the qgsogrprovider class. This means that if a user loads a geopackage
which was encoded using the "qgis geopackage extension", it will
automatically load the QGIS project from it. We think that it makes sense to
also add the  "ows geopackage extension" to the core; in that case, users
could load projects exported from other GIS software seamlessly, without
having to load the plugin. The mechanism would be very similar to what was
already implemented for the  "qgis geopackage extension".

Before preparing any Pull Request, we would like to understand first what is
the general feeling of the community about this feature; is this something
which seems useful and interesting to add to the QGIS core? If yes, we would
also appreciate any comments regarding any details the implementation.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback :-)

                                     Joana



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