OSGeo Python Library

Motivation
Several OSGeo software projects support Python. However, a global abstraction layer is lacking which would help to do "OSGeo Python programming". We think of well documented bindings to the various software projects which are handled as plugins (or whatever appropriate).

Functionality
Shared functions may include


 * Import/Export of data
 * Linking to external data sources
 * Reprojection tools

Programming Language

 * Python
 * SWIG

Existing code to be recycled

 * FWTools.org
 * GDAL SWIG Python bindings
 * Mapserver Python bindings
 * QGIS Python bindings
 * GRASS SWIG Python bindings

Architecture
Draft concept:

++ |                                                                |  |                      OSGeo Python Library                      |   User API |                                                               |  +-++-+---+-+-+  |         |            |             |           |         |     |  | File IO | Streams IO | Projections | Analytics |  Print  | ... |  Abstraction Layer |        |            |             |           |         |     |  +-++-+---+-+-+  |                      |             |           |         |     |  |        GDAL/xxx      |   PROJ4     |   GRASS   |  QGIS   | ... |  OSGeo and related projects |                     |             |           |Mapserver|     |   with Python bindings |                     |             |           |         |     |  +--+-+---+-+-+

License
It is proposed to license the OSGeo Python Library under ... TBD. Certainly OSI compliant.

Interested people

 * Markus Neteler (proposer)