Hey, how about a new map projection in the shape of a Cheetah!
-Perry
Steve Lime wrote:
Someone already sent along one idea- a cheetah with a map instead of spots...
Steve
Emil Zegers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/28/05 9:08 AM >>>
Congratulations all with this remarkable step ahead.
Looks like MapServer is getting even more mature very quick.
Also looking forward to see proposals for the new logo :-)
Regards,
Emil Zegers
----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: Steve Lime <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Datum: maandag, november 28, 2005 2:37 pm
Onderwerp: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] MapServer Foundation - Open Letter
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
