PDAL Notes 2022

PDAL Misc Notes
Discussion of PDAL, related source code projects, related technology, goals of the OSGeoLive project, goals of OSGeo dot org, general commentary.

Executive Summary: no Board action needed for 2022 OSGeoLive; it would be great to find a maintainer for what is not going into Debian, starting in June 2022.

Technology -- Point clouds are a digital format of remote sensing data [0]. Intense advancement of digital geospatial technology in the modern era includes point clouds, for visualization structures [1], for situational awareness in security applications, measurement & modelling of remote sensing environments including ground water surfaces and forestry applications, and more.

The LAS file format [2] was invented by FOSS author Martin Isenburg and subsequently gained standing as an international standard. Using invention and out-of-the-box thinking, LAS represents true, original advancement in the open digital science field. Martin is widely regarded now, after his passing, as one of the great contributors to our field [3]. Subsequently, a system for compression on the data was devised, with associated IP rights. [4] PDAL is an extensible software system implemented mostly in C++, as a project modeled directly on the vastly-influential GDAL project. Founder Howard Butler used ideas, community mechanisms and plug-in driver-model, based directly from GDAL. [5]

Howard 'hobu' Butler and PDAL PSC Member Mike Smith have indicated that PDAL plus "all of Howard's projects" are affected by the recent diplomatic snafu. This list is at least PDAL, liblas, libspatialindex, and python-rtree.[7] (python-rtree is a python wrapper for libspatialindex)  Please note that dozens of prominent contributors have built these collected software libraries, not Howard Butler alone [8]. The contributor list, engineering correctness, and market impact of these software libraries are built directly on the community and engineering reputation of GDAL.

[0]  -WIKIPEDIA- [1]  -GOOGLE- [2]  -LAS- [3]  -BIO- [4]  -ZIP- [5]  -PDAL- [6] -LINK- https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/ticket/2072 https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/ticket/2283

[7] https://salsa.debian.org/debian-gis-team/libspatialindex https://salsa.debian.org/debian-gis-team/python-rtree https://salsa.debian.org/debian-gis-team/geographiclib

[8] https://github.com/libLAS/libLAS/graphs/contributors https://github.com/libspatialindex/libspatialindex/graphs/contributors https://github.com/Toblerity/rtree/graphs/contributors

[9] -DISTRO-

Goals of OSGeoLive

The OSGeoLive GNU-linux project exists to showcase the ecosystem of OSGeo dot org incubated projects with documentation in ten+ human languages, serves as a reference code implementation of installation and inter-operability of these software projects using OGC and FAIR standards, and demonstrate using a curated showcase of examples to easily trial software. Current and developing technology stacks, on the server, in the browser, on the desktop, are updated and run in a modern, networked linux operating system. OSGeoLive has been recognized by Distro-watch and other professional catalogs of modern linux. [9]

History -- past uses of PDAL on OSGeoLive:

PDAL binary has existed on OSGeoLive linux for some years. In June 2018, a short install script was added to the OSGeoLive repo. [6]

Conflict within the broader community

Some kind of interactions between Debian Developer [10] Sebastian Cowenburg (sebastic) and PDAL Developer Howard Butler (hobu) have led to protest and action by sebastic. Conflict over tech is not new [12]. The net effect is that from May 2022 onward, new revisions of PDAL will not be built and included in the "upstream" Debian GIS system of packaging. There is a complex and long-standing relationship between Debian GIS/sebastic and OSGeoLive/UbuntuGIS/kalxas. Essentially, both Debian and UbuntuGIS opportunistically feed on the work products of the other. There is a general context of more work than any one or small group of people can do, to formalize and ingest new OSS software into Debian packages. [11]

Debian packaging is the standard for signed, authenticated software products installable into GNU-Debian-Ubuntu linux OS computers, and includes the most trusted sources of software available today for that ecosystem due to decades of products, cryptographic immutability and signed integrity of the package contents.

[10] [https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDeveloper#:~:text=Debian%20Developer%20(DD)%20is%20our,elect%20the%20Debian%20Project%20Leader. -DD-] [11] -DEBIAN- [12] clone wars

EMAIL Inquiry April 2022 Hi Howard - thank you for presenting and organizing at Cloud-Native Geospatial Days this week. re: Debian Can you help me understand this email ? I do not have current context on this. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1009625 thank you  --Brian M Hamlin    /  MAPLABS  /  Berkeley, Calif.

Howard Butler replies: The context is Bas is removing PDAL from Debian [1]. No other Debian maintainer has come forward to continue its inclusion. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-gis/2022/02/msg00004.html

The present author Brian M Hamlin (darkblueb), MAPLABS Berkeley, raised the issue to the Board of Directors of OSGeo dot org in April 2022, noting that some kind of clock is now ticking, marking the 'removal' of PDAL (and perhaps a small list of related software) from the Debian build pipeline. In fact, no packages will be 'removed' from Debian, it means that no new packages will be built and integrated, past that date, as things stand now. The details of this mechanism are complicated. Angelos Tzotsos has indicated that UbuntuGIS project has separate standing, and may or may not be in a similar situation.

OSGeo Board Meeting wiki "Board Meeting 2022-04-25" * Issues in Debian packaging of pdal (https://pdal.io/) * Conda can’t be used on OSGeoLive * What exactly is required from board? (considering PDAL is not an OSGeo affiliated project) * Considering it as a technical problem, a solution can be figured out internally for inclusion of PDAL in OSGeoLive (ed. within the OSGeoLive project)

Angelos (kalxas) Tzotsos indicated a willingness to build bridges at the Board level to the PDAL project, considering that most everyone involved is an OSGeo member

How to Proceed

There are several issues raised here, related to community access to OSS software libraries via OSGeo dot org; support for Point Cloud technology on OSGeoLive (civilian science, without barrier to potential geo-political rivals of the US/West); software developer community participation and reputation in engineering (F)OSS over time, perhaps more.

Importantly, PDAL exists as a stable package now and can be used on OSGeoLive 15 for 2022 with or without resolving these questions. Secondly, the last QGIS LTS release of October 2021 is almost certainly the target to ship for FOSS4G 2022 Florence, not the very recent, "point cloud enabled" QGIS version, soon to be released, estimated June 2022.

Postscript
 * past history*