Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of FAQGeneral

Timestamp:

Apr 22, 2007, 10:38:19 AM (17 years ago)

Author:

Mateusz Łoskot

Comment:

Crated FAQ General

FAQGeneral

@@ +1 @@
+= FAQ - General =
+
+[[PageOutline(2,,inline)]]
+
+=== What is GDAL? ===
+
+GDAL name is usually used to name one of following:
+
+ * project of translation libraries for raster (GDAL) and vector (OGR) data formats, so in this case ''GDAL = GDAL + OGR''
+ * translator library for raster geospatial data formats.
+
+=== What's this OGR Stuff? ===
+
+The gdal/ogr tree holds source for a vector IO library inspired by [http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards OpenGIS Simple Features]. In theory it is separate from GDAL, but currently they reside in the same source tree and are somewhat entangled. More information can be found at http://ogr.maptools.org. It is my plan to properly fold OGR into GDAL properly at some point in the future. Then GDAL will be a raster and vector library. 
+
+=== What exactly was the license terms for GDAL? ===
+
+The following terms are the same as X windows is released under, and is generally known as the [http://www.opensource.org/osi3.0/licenses/mit-license.php MIT License]. It is intended to give you permission to do whatever you want with the GDAL source, including building proprietary commercial software, without further permission from me, or requirement to distribute your source code. A few portions of GDAL under under slightly different terms. For instance the [http://www.libpng.org/ libpng], [http://www.ijg.org/ libjpeg], [http://remotesensing.org/libtiff/ libtiff], and [http://remotesensing.org/geotiff/geotiff.html libgeotiff] license terms may vary slightly though I don't think any of them differ in any significant way. Some external libraries which can be optionally used by GDAL are under radically different licenses.
+
+{{{
+Copyright (c) 2000, Frank Warmerdam
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
+copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
+to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
+the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
+and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
+Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
+in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
+OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
+THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
+FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
+DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
+}}}
+
+=== How do I add support for a new format? ===
+
+To some extent this is now covered by the [http://www.gdal.org/gdal_drivertut.html GDAL Driver Implementation Tutorial], and the [http://www.gdal.org/ogr/ogr_drivertut.html OGR Driver Implementation Tutorial].