Our experience with folding in libraries suggests that it will be
a couple of weeks work, give a stable product to import. So the plan
below is consistent with that experience, IMO.
It looks like we have an idea of what the roadmap should be.
I will put together a summary to combine the short term and long term
approaches.
I don't think we will even try this until after netCDF-4.0 is
released. As I recall, the idea was to come up the the long-term
distribution plan. If I can summarize discussion so far, I would say
the plan is:
* Initial release of netCDF-4 and HDF 1.8 will occur this
Summer. Users will install them one at a time, Unidata and NCSA will
distribute netCDF and HDF5 as we do today. NetCDF-4 will insure that
a correct version of HDF5 is installed. Users will have to link to
both netCDF and HDF5 libraries.
* About six months after initial release, some combined installations
will be available. Users will be able to download one tarball from
the Unidata site, and install both netCDF and HDF-5 libraries. They
will still have to link to both libraries.
* Within a year of initial release, a cvs merge of code bases will
allow
users to create a single library, with a single download and install
procedure. NetCDF-4 will be a optionally enabled part of the regular
HDF5 distributions. Users will only need to link to one library, the
HDF5 one.
* Additionally, a netCDF-only release will be available from
Unidata. It will allow us to distribute betas and other updates, and
allow users to install independently from HDF5 installation. Users
may build HDF5 without netCDF, then build netCDF, then link to both
libraries. Only enthusiastic beta testers and users in dire need of
the latest release will attempt this.
* As netCDF beta code becomes release code, it will be merged into
HDF5 releases.
Ed
--
Ed Hartnett -- ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
