[IPOL discuss] GSL for IPOL [Re: OpenCV and IPOL]

[Nicolas Limare]

Hi,

> in my opinion we should allow GSL [1], since it implements many of
> the operations needed in image processing or CV programs
> (eigensystems, minimization, wavelets, linear algebra, least-squares
> fitting, splines, etc).

I agree, GSL is useful and very stable. The only question was if it
would be usable for people working on Windows. GSL is not written with
windows compatibility in mind and the authors do not guarantee it is
usable on this platform. There are many blogs and websites explaining
how the compilation of GSL on Windows is possible, but they are always
specific to a given version of GSL and I was wondering if we could
rely on this information for the long term.

Tristan did a detailed study of this matter, and if I remember
correctly the conclusion was:
* The standard C compiler on Windows, MSVC, can not compile the
  official version of the GSL because of non-standard behaviour of
  this compiler.
* But some tools are available to convert the standard GSL headers to
  MSVC-compatible headers; these tools are based on Perl.
* So it is possible to compile, install and use GSL on Windows; but it
  is definitely not for beginners.
* It would be nice to provide a detailed compilation manual or a
  precompiled binary version somewhere on ipol.im.

So, if there is a consensus on it, I think we could allow GSL as an
external library and mention it in the software guidelines. And if
someone has the time to prepare a manual or a precompiled version,
it's even better, but should not stop us from accepting GSL.

-- 
Nicolas LIMARE - CMLA - ENS Cachan         http://limare.perso.math.cnrs.fr/
IPOL journal                                             http://www.ipol.im/
-> image processing, reproducible research, open science
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