OSGeo4W

Introduction

This page discusses the OSGeo Binary Distribution and Installer of software for MS Windows (aka Win32). It is a specific case of the OSGeo Binary Distribution.

Name of Installer

• OSGeo4W

Goals

General goals:

• Include a wide variety of OSGeo packages.
• Painless installation (exe/msi installer)
• Select desired packages only, and pull in dependencies automatically.

General Plan

Morph MS4W to use a nicer installer front end (instead of just zip files) and to include more packages.

Targetted Packages

In the following context required means we firmly plan to include this item, and that existing participants are committed to it. Optional implies we are interested in including it, but no one is committed to doing it. All packages will be optional to install (pending dependencies).

• MapServer (required, Jeff)
  • MapServer CGI (required, Jeff)
  • PHP MapScript (required, Jeff)
  • Python MapScript (optional)
• GDAL (required, Mateusz)
  • Python bindings (optional)
  • Plugin Drivers: ECW, OCI, SDE, MrSID, etc (optional)
• Mapbender (optional)
• Mapbuilder (optonal)
• GRASS (required) (Moritz Lennert?)
• Postgis/Postgres

Participants

(package maintainer please add your name!)

• Jeff McKenna: MS4W Maintainer
• Frank Warmerdam: FWTools
• Mateusz Loskot: maintain GDAL related components
• Yewondwossen Assefa: MapServer core

Technical Notes

• existing MS4W NSIS installer script
• Paul Ramsey notes that for installation in corporate environments it can be very helpful to provide MSI files, and to support non-interactive distribution.
• Markus Neteler mentioned that 6.3.0 winGRASS is now in RC1 (download) and also included in QGIS 0.9.0

Build Environment

• MSVC 7.1 currently used (MS4W, FWTools)
• possibly time to upgrade buildkit to 2005 (since a free version available, "Express")
• MSYS support?
• have a Windows VM on telascience ??
• also should segment from massive buildkit
• include build library files (header files, similar to how FWTools does currently)
  • offer as developer compenents??

Upgrades

• will force a new download of the installer

Custom Scripting in Installer

• PHP can be used for custom scripting

Versions

• must pick our supported version of PHP, Python, etc. to use throughout installer buildkit

Package Requirements

MS4W

• Apache
  • install into any directory
  • allow user to specify port to use
• MapServer
  • SDE, Oracle plugins
  • Mapscript: PHP, Java, Python, C#
  • AGG
• All existing MS4W packages and utilities:
  • Utilities:
    • avce00
    • dem tools
    • shapelib
    • shp2tile
    • shpdiff
  • Packages (user can optionally include these):
    • ArcIMS Emulator
    • Chameleon
    • dBox MapServer
    • FIST
    • GeoMOOSE
    • ka-Map
    • Mapbender
    • MapServer Itasca Demo Application
    • MapServer OGC Web Services Workshop
    • OpenLayers
    • PHP/Mapscript Sample Application
    • phpPgAdmin
    • p.mapper
• Miscellaneous
  • automatically upgrade/install packages directly from the maptools.org server

Note: IIS requirement might be handled with a community wiki

WINGRASS

• ActiveState Tcl
• MSYS (commandline-ready)

Mailing list invite

• Mark Cave-Ayland *
• Moritz Lennert *
• Tim Sutton (QGIS *)
• Frank
• Jeff
• Assefa
• Howard Butler
• Paul Ramsey
• Chris Holmes
• MapGuide
• GeoNetwork
• gvSIG
• GEOS
• OpenLayers
• INGRES installer magician

Priorities

• packaging
• mailing list setup
• put into OSGeo svn
• sponsors from organizations

Timelime

• base structure by April 2008

Long-Term Plan

• select a Project Steering Committee
• enter incubation as a OSGeo project

Mailing List

• osgeo4w-dev