OSGeo4W Packages

Notes on OSGeo4W Packages - downloads available at http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/release .

Low Level Libraries

curl

• HTTP/FTP protocol library.
• Contains curl executable and library.
• Includes ssl libraries that can conflict with versions in \windows\system32
• Required for mapserver, and GDAL.
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

expat

• XML Parser (library only)
• Required for GDAL / OGDI
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

fcgi

• FastCGI library (for use by cgi's)
• Required for MapServer
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

hdf5

• Read and write HDF5 format raster files
• Required for GDAL
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

iconv

• character set transcoding library (internationalization)
• Required for MapServer, GRASS
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

libjpeg

• JPEG read/write library
• Currently split into libjpeg, and libjpeg-devel packages though these will likely be merged.
• Required for MapServer, GDAL
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

libtiff

• TIFF read/write library
• currently split into libtiff-bin, and libtiff-devel packages though these will likely be merged
• Currently derived from CVS head to capture BigTIFF support (libtiff 4.0 Alpha 2)
• Required for GDAL, MapServer
• Requires libjpeg, libz
• Maintained by FrankW

libgeotiff

• GeoTIFF header reading and writing library
• Includes library, a few commands and many support data files.
• Required by GDAL
• Requires libtiff
• Maintained by FrankW

libxml2

• XML read/write library
• Required by MapServer
• Maintained by FrankW (Derived from BuildKit)

msvcrt

• Various Microsoft Visual Studio C runtimes (VC6, VC7.1, VC8.0).
• No source available, but they are redistributable.
• Required most visual studio built packages.
• It might make sense to refactor this into specific 7.1, and 8.0 packages, and possibly remove MSVCRT.DLL which I think is available on all win32 systems already.
• Maintained by FrankW

mysql

• MySQL client access library
• Actual package is called libmysql
• Required by GDAL (MapServer?)
• Maintained by FrankW (Derived from BuildKit)

NetCDF

• NetCDF file format reading and writing library
• Package includes library and a few executables (ncdump, etc)
• Required by GDAL
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

sqlite3

• SQLite3 database access library and sql engine.
• Includes library and commandline sqlite3 command.
• Required by GDAL, GRASS
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

xerces-c

• XML Parser
• Required by GDAL
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

zlib

• Deflate compression/decompression library
• Required by GDAL, libtiff
• Maintained by FrankW

libpq

• PostgreSQL client access library
• Required by GDAL, GRASS, MapServer
• Maintained by FrankW (derived from BuildKit)

proj

• Coordinate system transformation library
• Includes commandline tools (proj, cs2cs, geod)
• Currently lacks some datum shift files. Perhaps some supporting datum shift data should be a separate package?
• Required by GDAL, GRASS, MapServer
• Maintained by FrankW

GUI Libraries

Tcl/Tk

• Required by GRASS
• Normally done using ActiveState Tcl but this has license restrictions on redistributions. Not sure what our options are on this.
• Not yet packaged, no maintainer.

Qt4

• Required by QGIS and OSSIM
• Not yet packaged, no maintainer.
• Has been packaged by Tisham Dhar for QGIS win32 releases.

Script Languages

• see Tcl/Tk in the GUI Library group - mostly needed for GUI scriptinin in GRASS.

perl

• Required for Geoinformatica
• Perl bindings also exist for MapServer and GDAL
• Perl, built with MinGW, an example is Strawberry Perl but the compilation is not a problem
• Not packaged and no maintainer (but Ari Jolma might well take this on)

GDAL

• Raster / Vector format geospatial data access library
• Currently all one package including commands, python scripts, etc. Should likely factor into a -lib, -bin and -python set of components and a meta package for all of them.
• Python stuff not working yet.
• Should add C#, Perl, Java and perhaps Ruby bindings.
• Lots of extra formats ought to be added, including HDF4, OGDI, JasPer (maybe), ecw (nonfree), mrsid (nonfree), , dods/OPeNDAP, SDE (nonfree)
• Required by MapServer, GRASS, OSSIM, QGIS
• Requires libtiff, libjpeg, libgeotiff, proj, hdf5 curl geos libmysql sqlite3 netcdf libpq expat xerces-c
• Maintainer is FrankW

mapserver

• Web Map Server with support for various OGC protocols such as WMS, WCS, WFS and SOS.
• Version string: "MapServer version 5.0.2 OUTPUT=GIF OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG OUTPUT=WBMP OUTPUT=SWF OUTPUT=SVG SUPPORTS=PROJ SUPPORTS=AGG SUPPORTS=FREETYPE SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER SUPPORTS=WMS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WFS_SERVER SUPPORTS=WFS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WCS_SERVER SUPPORTS=SOS_SERVER SUPPORTS=FASTCGI SUPPORTS=THREADS SUPPORTS=GEOS INPUT=JPEG INPUT=POSTGIS INPUT=OGR INPUT=GDAL INPUT=SHAPEFILE"
• Several libraries (ie. AGG, ming(swf), freetype) are statically linked in but really should be factored out as dlls in distinct packages.
• Current package is just the cgi and utility executables.
• Needs bindings packages for php, perl, python, java and c#.
• Requires: curl geos libpq gdal proj iconv fcgi libxml2
• Maintained by FrankW

GRASS

• A commandline and desktop raster/vector GIS system.
• requires GDAL, Tcl/Tk (for GUI) and several other packages...
• Details on WinGRASS at: http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/WinGRASS_Current_Status
• Currently not packaged and no maintainer.
• We likely want to distribute with MSYS package for commandline operations though I believe the WinGRASS objective is to not require this.
• WinGRASS is built with MSYS/MinGW currently. Some care will be required with supporting packages (ie. GDAL) to ensure they can be practically used from the MSYS/MinGW environment.

Geoinformatica

• GTK+, for example the one from Glade for Windows works
• Perl, built with MinGW, an example is Strawberry Perl but the compilation is not a problem
• A long list of Perl modules including GTK2 and Cairo
• GDAL and GDAL-Perl, built with MinGW and MSYS (I'm not sure if it's a requirement that GDAL has to be built with MSYS, probably not)
  • all data source libraries (curl, postgis, expat, ...) are a plus and Proj4 and GEOS of course
• Useful: bash, gnuplot, and development tools: MinGW, MSYS, glade, doxygen
• Not packaged yet, and no maintainer (presumably Ari Jolma would be the maintainer)