Outdated information regarding ECW availability, in the FAQ

[DelazJ]

URL

https://qgis.org/resources/support/faq/#can-i-open-ecw-files-with-qgis

Type(s) of Problems

Other

Summary

The FAQ mentions downloading ECW libraries from kyngchaos site in order to open ECW raster files in QGIS, for macOS users. This is outdated for years, the dmg built from the QGIS-Mac-Packager repository providing already that driver, in the same way as osgeo4w.

Also, the Faunalia page, for other OS, starts with The following instructions are deprecated for QGIS 3. Not really encouraging to test whether they are still correct and its Windows part is deprecated anyway. So maybe instructions for Linux could be checked and added/simplified directly in the FAQ, or we find a better source?

[m-kuhn]

I agree this should be reworded, it's outdated and also a bit convoluted.
I also wonder if we should mention fully free alternatives (e.g. COGTiff) as an alternative strategy.

[agiudiceandrea]

@m-kuhn, while COG TIFF would be a good alternative to ECW, you actually need to be able to read the ECW format in order to convert the layers to COG TIFF or other suitable formats.

[m-kuhn]

@agiudiceandrea absolutely, this would more be in favor of a longer term ecosystem awareness move and not a short term replacement.

[Xpirix]

Hi everyone, please find the proposed fix at #522