Support for IDL virtual machine application

[mdruby]

Our group does not have access to an IDL license through our institution, and the cost of a license has increased significantly (We would only use IDL for the OSIRIS DRP). It seems they have recently implemented a virtual machine runtime that allows users to run distributed .SAV files without a license (https://www.nv5geospatialsoftware.com/docs/VirtualMachineApplicationsIntro.html).

I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement (or if it's even possible), but are there any plans to support this method of distribution?

[jlyke-keck]

The OSIRIS pipeline is partially written in C, which is accessed via an EXECUTE(CALL_EXTERNAL) function. Use of EXECUTE is not allowed with the IDL virtual machine. Removing this would be a serious re-write of the pipeline and currently is not planned.