Re: [DebianGIS] Fw: Re: [Proj] NAD27 and WGS84 woes
Francesco P. Lovergine wrote:
As explained in the related bug report, I'm afraid that those blobs are not
endianess-safe.
Frankie,
I'm not familiar with the bug report. I have no reason to believe the
PROJ.4 access code for these two formats is not endian safe. I implemented
the code, and I'm normally quite careful about such things.
> The NTv2 binary has an ASCII counterpart, so it is probably
better pre-convert them in ASCII format.
I do not have the ascii source files. Also, I'm very keen to get
away from the concept of producing different binary files on different
platforms. I think *that* is evil.
> Do you have a reference for the NTv1 format?
Not to hand, no, though I presume I was able to find them at one time.
> Also, it's better avoiding binary blobs, which are always looked
with suspect by ftpmasters.
That is a mental aberration I'll leave to the ftpmasters to deal with.
> A general problem anyway is about a missing
accompanying license for those files. People say they are public domain,
but there's no evidence about that. There are many places where they
are distributed, but this is does not imply they are public domain...
Well, I don't see that the situation is fundamentally different than lots
of other files in the distribution. Having a license statement at the
top of a source files doesn't make it true.
Nevertheless, if the position of the Debian project is that they don't
trust the license status of these files, and they want confirmation then
I am willing to prepare some information on their sourcing on the proj.4
trac wiki. Please file a PROJ.4 ticket explaining the requirement, and
some justification for it and I'll go from there.
I will say that at one level I'm offended by what I consider a baseless
questioning of the provenance of a few particular files with no rationale.
I am willing to act on this only because I feel the DebianGIS effort has
earned some "bending over backwards" karma by their important, and fairly
selfless contribution to the FOSS4G effort in packaging FOSS4G for Debian.
So, consider this as a using-up of good will points.
Best regards,
--
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam@pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent
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