OSGeo Binary Distribution

This is a proposal for a project to develop an OSGeo "branded and certified" binary distribution of open source geospatial software for Windows, Linux and possibly MacOS X and Solaris.

= Rationale =

= Objectives =

Offer a painless user experience installing and getting started with OSGeo products.


 * Support major operating systems. In order of precidence that likely means Windows, Linux (Intel32), MacOS X and Solaris (Sparc).
 * Ensure that all components are inter-compatible avoiding version incompatibility hell.
 * Allow progressive installation, with packages pulled over the internet as requested. So the person can install a few packages without having to download everything, and so they can go back and add more packages later.
 * Provide an easy to use GUI installer.
 * Be relatively distribution/version agnostic - on linux we hope the same binaries will work on Debian, Fedora Core, Suse, Ubuntu, etc. On windows and MacOS X we hope the binaries would work across a variety of relatively recent OS versions.
 * Include at least all the OSGeo project software as packages, and dependencies of those packages.
 * Suitable for desktop and web service folks.

= Who =

= Funding =


 * Budget 2006-2007
 * EDRC BAA Proposal
 * Make this a proper "project" of the foundation so folks can earmark specific sponsorship support to it.

= Technical Notes =


 * I think building on the existing FGS infrastructure Linux (and possibly other Unix platforms) is attractive.
 * I think the existing MS4W package could potentially be a base for windows distribution.
 * William Kyngesburye has done a great deal of work producing MacOS X framework-style packages of GDAL, MapServer, GRASS etc for MacOS X ( http://www.kyngchaos.com/ ).