[DebianGIS-dev] Migrating netcdf3 -> netcdf4

[Francesco P. Lovergine]

Dear RMs and interested maintainers (in Bcc)

What follows is the list of netcdf build-depending packages currently in the
archive. The netcdf4 package is available in experimental since a while
and currently at RC3 stage. It will be released quite soon and appears in
good shape for Debian, after some fixes already merged upstream. It builds
everywhere and pass unit tests as expected.

The netcdf4 library series extends version 3, but retains also the
previous API, so no unexpected breakages should be present.
Anyway, it is much safe doing our home work and try buildings with
the new version in experimental by explicitly specifying 
libnetcdf-dev (>= 1:4.0.0) in debian/control.

Ideally, a simple binNMUs will suffice in sid to ensure a smooth
transition, after this pre-check in experimental. And it will allow
a few new packages to enter finally the archive, due to their 
strict dependency on version 4.x

Interested packages:

v-sim (Debian Science Team <debian-science-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
vtk (A. Maitland Bottoms <bottoms at debian.org>) 
libmesh (Debian Scientific Computing Team <pkg-scicomp-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
deal.ii (Adam C. Powell, IV <hazelsct at debian.org>) 
octave-octcdf (Debian Octave Group <pkg-octave-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
dx (Daniel Kobras <kobras at debian.org>) 
libpdl-netcdf-perl (Henning Glawe <glaweh at debian.org>) 
nco (Charlie Zender <zender at uci.edu>) 
gri (Peter S Galbraith <psg at debian.org>) 
gerris (Debian Science Maintainers <debian-science-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
magics++ (Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry at debian.org>) 
gnudatalanguage (Gürkan Sengün <gurkan at phys.ethz.ch>) 
kst (Mark Hymers <mhy at debian.org>) 
gmt (Debian GIS Project <pkg-grass-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
python-scientific (Matthias Klose <doko at debian.org>) 
grads (Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry at debian.org>) 
labplot (Helen Faulkner <helen at debian.org>) 
gdal (Debian GIS Project <pkg-grass-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
grace (Nicholas Breen <nbreen at ofb.net>) 
ncview (Debian GIS Project <pkg-grass-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
minc (Debian-Med Packaging Team <debian-med-packaging at lists.alioth.debian.org>) 
cdo (Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry at debian.org>) 

As always, if RMs or others had something to say about/against this mini-transition, 
please speak now :-)

-- 
Francesco P. Lovergine