[Qgis-user] QGIS and ECW and MrSid formats

[Micha Silver]

Hi Agus:


Agustin Lobo wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Could we clarify the situation for ecw and Mrsid
> formats in QGIS? (and perhaps put a note
> somewhere in the qgis web pages).
>
The situation is, unfortunately, clear: The QGIS project can't allow 
itself to distribute software with support for formats which they 
themselves can not be further distributed.  And that seems to be the 
case with ecw.
>
>
> If there is a compiled version of gdal including
> support for these formats, why QGIS cannot? In any
> case, is there any workaround so that users can get
> to have ecw/Mrsid support out of their compiled version?
> Perhaps through a plugin?
>
While I'm not a developer, the with my (very) little understanding of 
how QGIS and gdal interact, I don't think this is possible with a plugin.
> I really think that the final QGIS1.0 should be able to read in
> those formats, somehow. This is probably seen as a minor concern for 
> developers, but a significant problem for users.
>
I totally agree. My guess is that this will eventually be resolved if 
some kind soul will produce a QGIS+gdal pair of binaries with the ecw 
and/or mrSid libraries compiled in.
Last time we exchanged our frustration with this situation, I even gave 
a name to the new gdal binaries: we need a "gdal-good" "gdal-bad" and 
"gdal-ugly" in the same fashion that licence encumbered audio codecs are 
released as binaries outside of the standard distro repositories.
> Agus

Regards,
Micha