[Qgis-psc] MacOS maintenance

[Denis Rouzaud]

Dear PSC,


After some internal discussions at OPENGIS.ch, I would like to raise my
interest and motivation for being involved in the MacOS packaging and
maintenance.


It has been already discussed with Peter who is happy to step back from
macos maintenance.

As a small recap of the technical situation, the current dependency build
system is based on an old work from Matthias, Osgeo4a. It has been used
until recently for QField too, but was switched to a generic and actively
maintained package management system: Microsoft’s vcpkg because of the huge
maintenance overhead.

A complete rewrite of the current dependencies build system sounds
premature though.

I would like to propose the following approach:

   -

   We get involved into the packaging for MacOS, taking over current
   Lutra’s assignment for 2022
   -

   We spend the available time in budget (5000 € at 110€/h, including the
   notarization, correct me if I’m wrong) to
   -

      update the deps to a recent state
      -

      build and bundle next releases 3.24+
      -

      try to bring the notarization with this release
      -

      try to bring the build of deps and maybe QGIS into a CI



   -

   I believe this would be very difficult with the available time, and
   would propose to report back when I reach 80% of the budget. We would then
   discuss on the possible approaches (financing, an official sponsorship from
   OPENGIS.ch, maybe some “free” work from other contributors)


For the future, we believe that the maintenance of the dependency
management system should not be on QGIS alone and instead should be
mutualized among platforms, developers and with the industry. Be it vcpkg
or something else, we should introduce an actively maintained solution.
This is a future yet unplanned work, but I would like to mention this to
clearly state our vision regarding the optimal solution after 2022.

Last but not least is the question of the arm packages for MacOS. I think
that I would be able to bring a roadmap and work estimation once I’ve
worked a bit more on our packaging system. I think we could plan something
before the end of the year.

What are your thoughts regarding the finances for these two things
(dependency management system and arm packages for QGIS)? Is this something
that must be postponed to 2023 or would it still be possible this year?



Please let me know your thoughts.

Kind regards,

Denis
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