Distribution Special Interest Groups

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Revision as of 02:59, 17 August 2008 by Wiki-Camerons (talk | contribs)
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This page proposes to create and promote a group of interest for GeoFOSS packaging related issues.

Distribution development, quality assurance and maintenance are often not addressed by application developers, despite distributions being a very effective way for projects to woe wider audiences and hence sponsors.

The key goals of this project are:

  • Facilitate the integration of quality, stable, GeoFOSS packages into Software Distributions.
  • Develop "Live CDs" for new users to trial GeoFOSS.
  • Develop baseline GeoFOSS to be used as a basis for workshops, tutorials and presentations.

To achieve these goals, we will:

  • Define and simplify the process for incorporating GeoFOSS packages into software distribution.
  • Open channels of communication between packagers and application developers.
  • Providing tools to facilitate GeoFOSS packaging.

Windows distributions

OSGeo4W

OSGeo4W is a windows based stack of GeoFOSS which is based upon cygwin.

Goal: Ease of installation of the whole GeoFOSS stack in windows.

Status: Aug '08: Actively maintained by community, Works well

  • Pros:
    • Has already packaged many of the key GeoFOSS applications.
    • Likely to release first major release at FOSS4G 2008, 29 Sep 2008.
    • Has strong developer community.
  • Con
    • Needs installation
    • Needs internet connection for installation

PortableGIS

PortableGIS is a collection of GeoFOSS applications that run from a USB stick.

Goal: Have the most important applications always with you.

Status: Actively maintained by one person, (Jo Cook)

  • Pro
    • No installation required, just run the applications
  • Con
    • Doesn't work right from CD at the moment
    • Applications need clean-up (Eg. Java is bundled more than once)
    • Only one maintainer
    • Project development infrastructure not set up yet.
    • Would benefit by alignment with similar projects.
    • PortableGIS currently needs to be run from a writable medium (like and USB stick), it won't work on a read-only medium like a CD.

Linux

Unlike the Debian-GIS SIG, which already has mailing list / code repository infrastructure, the RPM-using community does not have such infrastructure and would benefit from hosting by OSGeo.

Debian Linux

Ubuntu Linux

GeoLivre Linux

Gentoo Linux

Mandriva Linux

RPM-based distributions, such as Fedora Linux and SuSE Linux, do not have a dedicated GIS teams, but there are several parties maintaining independent RPM archives that could be persuaded to band their efforts together under the aegis of the foundation:

Fedora Linux

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