I have received scant input (no input) on my warnings and requests for input on: https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-geo/2019-November/027801.html Please review that carefully, and in addition please take time now, that is best within one week (things are moving very fast), to review and comment on the PROJ list on the draft RFC 4: https://github.com/rouault/PROJ/blob/rfc4_remote_and_geotiff_grid/docs/source/community/rfc/rfc-4.rst (threads:) https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/proj/2019-November/009021.html https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/proj/2019-November/009024.html https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/proj/2019-November/009030.html This concerns conditionally permitting PROJ (so here rgdal, sf and lwgeom) to download granular subsets of transformation grids behind the scenes to a user-writable directory, and then use these in coordinate transformation. The download would be from "the cloud", a content distribution network. In practice, this would mean that platforms connected to the internet, and after approving access to the CDN, would start "grabbing" grid portions from the CDN and using these for transformation, rather than say using institutionally sanctioned grids. The CDN grids are expected to be best of breed going forward, protecting us forever from horizontal and vertical shifts and giving full geodetic accuracy wherever applied (and where national mapping agencies agree to publish their best grids). It would be best if several list members at institutions with R-spatial workflow components or with relevant experience discuss this rapidly off-list (contact each other on list to volunteer if need be), respond to the PROJ list about the RFC draft before it is completed, and report back in this thread. Nobody will be able to help later if you sit on your hands now, now is when your needs can be protected for the next decade. For an individual academic like me to respond on your behalf would be most inadequate, as I can only speak from experience in individual research and teaching settings. Please take action urgently, this is an opportunity to contribute to shaping critical shared infrastructure with ramifications way beyond R-spatial. Please also offer me the comfort (offlist) of knowing that you are going to respond to the PROJ list request for comments on the RFC draft, it feels very lonely here trying to guess what your needs are. Roger
Roger Bivand Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2392-6140 https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=AWeghB0AAAAJ&hl=en