This is great news indeed. Very exciting. Must have been a lot of hard work behind the scenes!
Thanks for pushing Mapserver into a stable future, as you said a lot of people depend on it. Best regards, Bart > An Open Letter to the MapServer Open Source Web Mapping Community > > November 28, 2005 > > Greetings MapServer community, > > We are pleased to share with you some exciting news about the future of > open source web mapping. > > Over the past few years MapServer adoption has grown ten-fold and has > become the web mapping platform of choice for many businesses, government > agencies, nonprofit groups and individuals. The MapServer developers have > added powerful new features. The community has enjoyed three incredible > conferences and continues to support each other and enhance the community. > > We want to ensure that this success and momentum continues for the > MapServer product and community. MapServer continues to run well in > diverse environments and its rich set of features play an indispensable > role in many organizations. More than ever, we are committed to improving > MapServer and providing exceptional value to the community. > > To this end, we take this opportunity to share two bits of news: the > creation of the MapServer Foundation and welcoming the addition of > Autodesk's next-generation web mapping platform (previously known as Tux) > as open source into the foundation. > > MapServer Foundation > > We are delighted to announce the creation of the MapServer Foundation > (mapserverfoundation.org). The foundation is a nonprofit organization > whose goal is to provide a supportive framework for open, collaborative > development of geospatial software. Several groups and individuals are > collaborating to help launch and sponsor the new foundation. Financial > support from Autodesk will allow us to get the foundation up and running. > In this letter, we present some ideas of how we think the foundation can > help the community, but these ideas need broader discussion and debate > within the community. > > We looked to other successful open source movements, such as Apache, to > see how our community could benefit from the creation of an independent > foundation. It is clear that the time has come to create a formal > infrastructure to help further support and promote the professional open > source web mapping development environments and communities. While > initially focused on web mapping projects, we hope the foundation will > adopt other open source geospatial projects that need a home. > > Forming the foundation is only the beginning, as we now seek community > involvement and participation. The foundation will have a governance model > that allows it to be run by a Board of Directors that represents the > community. How it is ultimately going to be run is up to the members of > the community. The foundation will also have a set of bylaws that provide > structure and can be amended through a community voting process. > > Role of the foundation > > The first priority for the foundation is to engage the broader MapServer > community. Members of the community are encouraged to join and get > involved. Consider this letter as your invitation to participate. The > community web site is the place where you, as a user and participant in > the community, can follow and contribute to the development of the > MapServer Foundation family of projects. > > The primary responsibilities of the foundation may include: > > * Support code repository and other project infrastructure > * Formalized process for decision-making (e.g. where to host the next > conference) > * Legal protection for the source code and developers of the software > * Paying for development work on minor improvements of the platform > * Acting as a central repository for marketing, branding and > professional image development of the product > * Providing process for mitigating disputes > * Financial support for advocacy, sponsorship, community events and > conferences > > Many of these community-related functions have been overseen in an ad-hoc > manner or deferred to the University of Minnesota or other organizations > in the past. The foundation will streamline the coordination of legal, > administrative and governance efforts. > > As MapServer will now be officially managed by the foundation, it no > longer makes sense to call it UMN MapServer. Product branding is also > becoming more important and this is a good opportunity to introduce a more > visual name for the product. We propose calling it MapServer Cheetah. This > presents a fast and agile image that suits the product well and will help > differentiate it from other MapServer products. > > MapServer Cheetah & MapServer Enterprise > > We are also very excited about Autodesk's decision to release their next > generation web mapping platform into the open source community through the > MapServer Foundation. This adds further legitimacy to our open source > development platform. Their product will be named MapServer Enterprise and > is the successor to Autodesk MapGuide but built on an entirely new > architecture. > > MapServer Enterprise and MapServer Cheetah will be run as two separate but > parallel projects. There are no plans to merge them into one but we aim to > share technologies between the two projects wherever possible. We also > hope to provide utilities that allow the community to easily use one or > both platforms. > > MapServer Enterprise will be licensed using the OSI-approved GNU Lesser > General Public License (LGPL). MapServer Cheetah will continue to be > licensed under an MIT-style open source license. Autodesk is eager to > participate in an open and transparent development process driven by > independent guidance from the community. We encourage you to check out > MapServer Enterprise, which is available today on the community web site. > > We are proud to be part of this community and we hope you will join us in > establishing the MapServer Foundation. For more information on how to get > involved, please visit the community site at: mapserverfoundation.org and > join the mailing list discussions. > > Sincerely, > > Steve Lime, Chair, MapServer Technical Steering Committee (MTSC) > Yewondwossen Assefa, MTSC Member > Howard Butler, MTSC Member > Daniel Morissette, MTSC Member > Perry Nacionales, MTSC Member > Frank Warmerdam, MTSC Member > Tom Burk, University of Minnesota > David McIlhagga, DM Solutions Group > Tyler Mitchell > Claude Philipona, Camptocamp SA and FOSS4G 2006 organizing committee > Gary Lang, Autodesk > >
