Dear All, Looks like the MrSID drivers are here to stay then. But from my point of view this is happening on borrowed time.
Let me explain why I think removing MrSID support looks unavoidable in the long term to me. It's merely a technological problem and one of maintainability. The fundamental issue with MrSID is that it is closed source technology which is distributed as binaries only. This means that projects like gvSIG are dependent on binaries for all supported OS being distributed by Lizardtech (in 32 and 64 bit), and have no influence on their quality or compatibility (with e.g. older versions of Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, or gvSIG's Java API). Sooner or later it will come to a point where the gvSIG support for MrSID will be outdated and no longer compatible with their current binaries (there are some problems already and MrSID version 4 seems to be crashing all over the place on Linux). Since there is no-one to maintain the mrSID drivers for gvSIG, that will spell the death of MrSID support sooner or later. I will try and move MrSID support into our GDAL drivers collection. This might solve the problem for the time being, as the GDAL drivers are actively maintained and of high quality. But there is no guarantee. So I think if you are currently depending on gvSIG and MrSID, then now would be the time to start asking/suggesting your clients to acquire/provide raster data in alternative formats (or at least MrSID version 3) -- so when the day comes and gvSIG can no longer support the latest MrSID format version, you will not be out in the rain. Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- > > Dear Ben, > > removing MrSID format would to a large extend render gvSIG CE useless > for my applications since all the aerials of the US Agricultural > service (1 m resolution) is published in that format. It is widely > used as a compressed image form,at by many people I know. Basically > the entire US aerial imagery (which you can download for free) is in > that format. > > So please don't remove the driver - > yikes... > > Also as background information the "very proprietary developers" of > this format are sitting here in Seattle : Lizardtech - and they are > also hosting the very open source meeting for the Cascadia user group > of Geospatial open source (CUGOS) aka Cascade Chapter of OSGEO here in > Washington State USA... for the last 4 years ... :) > > > Cheers > Karsten > > > Karsten Vennemann > Principal > > Terra GIS LTD > 2119 Boyer Ave E > Seattle , WA 98112 > USA www.terragis.net > > > > > From: Frank Sokolic [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 06:29 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Gvsigce-community] Eliminating MrSID support > > > > > Hi Ben, > The national mapping agency here in South Africa still releases aerial > photos in MrSID format so we pretty much have to have MrSID support in > the GIS software we use. What are the chances of keeping MrSID support > but as an extension so that it can be installed if needed? > > Frank. > > > From: [email protected] > Sent: 2011-08-26 16:43:02 > To: [email protected] > Cc: > Subject: [Gvsigce-community] Eliminating MrSID support > Dear all, > > I am currently reviewing the state of raster > driver support under gvSIG CE. Basically, we > have two proprietary drives: > ECW and MrSID. I would like to get rid of > the separate driver libraries for both of them. > > It is (probably) possible to merge ECW into > GDAL (this is the open source driver collection > that also has GeoTIFF, ArcInfo raster, etc.). > > But MrSID is a binary-only distribution and > a very shoddy one, too. So my question is: > Is there any actual use for MrSID? Personally, > I have never come across this format and unless > someone has a really compelling reason to keep > this driver around, I will simply remove it > from gvSIG CE. > > Cheers, > > Ben > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > EMC VNX: the world's simplest storage, starting under $10K > The only unified storage solution that offers unified management > Up to 160% more powerful than alternatives and 25% more efficient. > Guaranteed. http://p.sf.net/sfu/emc-vnx-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ Gvsigce-community > mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gvsigce-community ------ Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EMC VNX: the world's simplest storage, starting under $10K The only unified storage solution that offers unified management Up to 160% more powerful than alternatives and 25% more efficient. Guaranteed. http://p.sf.net/sfu/emc-vnx-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Gvsigce-community mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gvsigce-community
