[Community] My take on the Autodesk-MapServer Foundation

[Paul Howell]

Thanks Sean,
    Was hoping to hear something about that here, most likely from you.
    If I remember right, you set PCL and ZCO up so that it is not really 
dependent on MapServer (Cheetah) as the underlying architecture, right?  So 
that it should be possible to (at some point) hook up to other GIS servers 
such as MapServer Enterprise (or some commercial products) in the future, 
if it is advantageous to do.   So if things go as well as might be hoped 
with the new foundation, we may have another open source GIS engine to work 
with someday under PCL/ZCO/PrimaGIS.  Right?
=Paul




At 01:58 PM 12/1/2005, Sean Gillies wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Since PCL/ZCO/PrimaGIS currently depend on MapServer, I feel I should
>write to explain my take on this issue.
>
>Autodesk announced Monday that they were helping to start a MapServer
>Foundation. Their initial contribution to the foundation is to open
>source their replacement for MapGuide (let's call it MapGuide 3000
>just for fun), which has been in development for about 2 years, and
>call it "MapServer Enterprise". The original MapServer is to become
>"MapServer Cheetah". Note well that there is no common code base
>between the two projects, do not be mislead by the common MapServer
>prefix.
>
>A small group of MapServer stakeholders worked together with Autodesk
>under a non-disclosure agreement to make the above naming decisions
>and form a foundation shell. Browse to
>
>     http://www.mapserverfoundation.org
>
>for details including the original open letter.
>
>I am the only member of MapServer's Technical Steering Committee that
>refused to sign Autodesk's NDA, and for better or worse, I abstained
>from participating in the secret foundation discussions. In my
>opinion, signing an NDA to discuss an open source software foundation
>smells very bad. Furthermore, I think the NDA, and the timing of the
>announcement to coincide with Autodesk's annual conference, taints
>the foundation. I'd like the foundation to succeed, but I'm
>personally going to be cautious in my involvement, and wait to see
>whether Autodesk's true intentions are to embrace or extend the
>MapServer community.
>
>MapServer's (the original MapServer) license has not changed at all,
>so there's no direct impact on PCL/ZCO/PrimaGIS. As I wrote in
>
>     http://zcologia.com/news/125
>
>There does not appear to be much from MapGuide 3000 that is
>immediately useful to us, other than the Feature Data Objects (FDO).
>
>The GEOS library will not be entering the new foundation. Nor will
>PostGIS.
>
>PROJ.4, and GDAL/OGR, probably will be entering the new foundation. I
>expect that they will retain their current licenses, which is fine
>for us.
>
>Personally, I am not eager to see PCL, ZCO, or PrimaGIS enter the
>foundation. We have decent development resources of our own, and will
>enjoy freedom and room to maneuver that would be lost by joining the
>MapServer Foundation. If anything, we are better off trying to cozy
>up to the larger Zope and Plone communities.
>
>cheers,
>Sean
>
>---
>Sean Gillies
>sgillies at frii dot com
>http://zcologia.com/news