Sander Schaminee (GeoCat), Jody Garnett (GeoCat)

This proposal is for GeoServer 2.19.1

• Under Discussion
• In Progress
• Completed
• Rejected
• Deferred

Response to GeoServer PSC call for maintenance activities issued in proposals December 2020 meeting.

GeoCat has recently setup a GeoCat branded windows installer for the GeoNetwork project (which is presented as a third-party distribution) and were considering doing the same for GeoServer to support our customers.

If there is indeed maintenance funding available we can use this experience to make an official GeoServer windows installer (with GeoServer branding).

From email:

GeoServer PSC:

During this week's PSC meeting we had a number of ideas for maintenance activities that could be performed with our 2020 budget.

I have confirmed with my employer GeoCat that we would be in position to restore the much beloved windows installer:

1. Updating to the latest NSIS
2. Setting up a build chain from build.geoserver.org for active master/stable/maintenance branches targeting release and nightly jobs.
3. Making sure the installer is signed with OSGeo certificate
4. Making sure the uninstaller is also signed

We have some recent experience making an installer for the GeoNetwork opensource project (see "third-party distributions" here). We would require the OSGeo certificate to complete the signing activities above.

We would like to propose a contract with two milestones:

1. $1500 USD installer nightly/release build chains (payment on initial use in a release)

2. $500 USD installer support/maintenance addressing any issues coming up in the first year of public availability (payment on completion of support period)

Notes:

• Use of latest NSIS 3 is proposed above, this is not restoring the older NSIS 2 installer.
• The prices quoted do not reflect GeoCat commercial rates, this work is being considered as a background activity of value to GeoCat customers.
• The support/maintenance milestone is proposed as we expect more feedback once the first official release is available. As GeoCat is not windows shop success depends on the GeoServer community using the installer in a wide range of environments.

No backwards compatibility issues are anticipated, we have been using Java 8 and Jetty consistently for some time.

Q: Jukka: Would the new installer still requite 32 bit java because of the wrapper?

A: Sander: It's actually the opposite: the Java Service Launcher requires 64-bits Java. But if I recall correctly, the wrapper supports both, so in theory we can build 32 and 64-bits installers, if needed.

Q: Discussion on different service provider wrappers

• Java Service Launcher: Wrapper mentioned above, the license is "public domain license" (so not strictly open source).
• Tanuki: 32-bit free to use, 64-bit commercial. Used previously by GeoServer.
• yajsw.sourceforge.net - was not easy to setup and did not get to work
• commons-daemon used by Tomcat

See comparison chart

Project Steering Committee:

• Alessio Fabiani: +1
• Andrea Aime: +1
• Ian Turton: +1
• Jody Garnett: +0
• Jukka Rahkonen: +1
• Kevin Smith: +1
• Simone Giannecchini: +1
• Torben Barsballe: +1
• Nuno Oliveira: +1

• windows installer maintenance contract proposal geoserver-devel
• GeoTools / GeoServer PMC meeting - 2021-01-19 geoserver-devel
• Geoserver windows installer build script geoserver-devel