Zeiss ZVI file format support development for OpenSlide

[Benjamin Gilbert]

On 07/19/2012 01:36 AM, Alexandre Kharlamov wrote:
> On 07/19/12 04:57, Benjamin Gilbert wrote:
>> Sure.  The Autotools changes are in the libgsf branch of
>> <https://github.com/bgilbert/openslide>.  I have not updated CMake.
> I'll take a look, but not sure what you mean by "I have not updated
> CMake." Can you please explain?

Automake is the supported build system.  We also have build files for 
the CMake build system, which were contributed by a user and are really 
only relevant for Windows builds.  I have not added the additional 
dependency to the CMake build scripts.

> Well, I'm sorry, but if architecture needs modification - it tells
> something about the architecture.

OpenSlide evolved organically as additional slide formats were added. 
Some of these slide formats impose rather unusual requirements on the 
codebase.  The resulting architecture isn't bad, but there's certainly 
room for improvement.  That won't happen overnight.  Meanwhile, we have 
to work with the codebase we have.

> I'm sorry, who can prohibit you from including a .c and a .h file in
> your src folder, compile it to a .o and link to it statically??

We would no longer be permitted to distribute OpenSlide in Fedora or 
RHEL unless the packaging scripts disabled the bundled library. That 
policy is enforced by the Fedora Packaging Committee, which seldom 
grants exceptions.  Debian policy imposes a similar requirement (not as 
consistently enforced?) which is inherited by the Ubuntu packages.

>> I propose gdk-pixbuf.  It's in the Gtk suite of libraries that we
>> already use, and it adds no new transitive dependencies.  It also
>> appears to support RLE.
> I could not find list of file formats supported by it anywhere in the
> internet.

Here is the source:

     http://git.gnome.org/browse/gdk-pixbuf/tree/gdk-pixbuf/io-bmp.c

> "Discussing what I need from the Openslide
> external and internal API's" isn't really my strong side. I'd rather work on
> my little bit of code, get it done and move on.

Unfortunately, that's not how community development works.  Fluorescence 
support will require architectural changes to OpenSlide, and you need to 
be willing to work with the community to ensure that those changes meet 
both your needs and ours.

--Benjamin Gilbert