some comments inline for those that care to read a rebuttal. In
general, most of the issues that you raise have been discussed
extensively on both the mapserver-users and mapserver foundation
discuss lists, and on IRC. You will find folks coming down on both
sides, but I think the general sentiment expressed in both these
emails is based on some mis-understandings of the original announcement.
On 6-Dec-05, at 9:03 AM, Skalski Artur - askals wrote:
If I may...
I think, things You're saying are TRUE
that's how it looks like now
I'ts a bit annoying when I get a lot of news and announcements
about Autodesk lunching it's OpenSource Project Mapserver
Enterprice, whithout any word about already existing REAL MAPSERVER,
this is true, not much was said about MapServer but then there wasn't
much to say. It was mostly about the foundation and Autodesk's entry
into the Open Source world.
and Mapserver 'Cheetah' realy sounds like Mapserver 'Cheeting' or
'Cheeter' for non native speakers, so using this name when offering
a webmaping solution to the client will demand a lot of additional
explanations,
this has been resolved I think.
any way I realy hope that Mapsever, people who developed along with
the rest of the community will not start living in the shadow of
"great Autodesk's open source project ;)"
I think that the general populace of the community is intelligent
enough to evaluate the capabilities of Autodesk's open source project
(TUX) and determine whether it meets their needs. MapServer will
never (or at least of the forseeable future) implement some of the
features that TUX implements. We, as a community of open source web
mapping professionals, now have the choice to pick the best solution
for a given problem.
regards
Artur
-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Andre Karp
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 2:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver - Autodesk: hostile
takeover, merger of equals or what?
Hello,
having thought about what I read in that "open letter" some days
ago, I want
to contribute my opinion to the discussion.
Unfortunatly, I'm not happy about this development, and I will try to
explain why:
In the beginning, there were two players: the UMN Mapserver people
and the
Autodesk people. The UMN Mapserver people were using and developing a
software which is, from a technical point of view, the fastest and
most
stable webmapping-technolgy existing so far. The Autodesk people had -
sorry, I don't want to offend someone, but this is my opinion based
on my
experience working with different kinds of GIS Software for many
years - a
software which was not really competitive, neither against the
technical
superiority of the UMN Mapserver nor against the commercial
predominance of
ESRI ArcIMS.
there were more than two players. And it could be argued that UMN
MapServer was not really one of the players.
The point why I was upset by the merging of Autodesk Mapguide and UMN
Mapserver is, that, from my point of view, the UMN Mapserver people
did the
work - and they did a really good job - and the Autodesk people are
going to
harvest. Autodesk is talking about its great contribution - 60
years of work
... - but, I'm sorry, 60 years of work does not say anything about
what has
been done during this time (e.g. look at ArcGIS: there is without
doubt a
lot of work in this software, but if you have to use it, well, you
wish it
would be only half as fast and stable as the UMN Mapserver is -
sorry ESRI)
they are not merging. Also, while you are correct to say that 60 man
years of effort may not indicate the usefulness of the product, I
think you should actually try it and evaluate it for yourself before
coming up with an uninformed assessment like this.
Assumed it's true that the UMN Mapserver could need some better
marketing, I
wonder whether the people from Autodesk are the right people to
show how to
do, since MapGuide is not a really 'on top' from the marketing
point of
view - maybe except the coup of grabbing the UMN Mapserver
technology ;-).
True. Note that I don't expect Autodesk to promote UMN MapServer.
That is for us to do. What they will do is help to set up and fund a
foundation within which both projects can exist and grow.
The danger I see with merging Mapserver Cheetah / Mapserver
Enterprise is,
that the reputation of the so-called 'Cheetah'- version gets
dependent on
the things Autodesk is doing with the so-called 'Enterprise'-
version, and
whatever they do, it will irradiate to the open-source-version, so the
community is getting depend on Autodesk product politics, and we
will have
to explain the differences to our customers, that means, we are
going to be
involved in the autodesk product policies. To be honest: not the thing
everyone is keen on.
Again, there is no intention of merging the projects technically but
I see your point about co-branding placing pressure on both
products. Note that this pressure goes both ways. MapServer has an
aggressive release schedule and a wealth of features and bug fixes in
each release. There will be pressure on the TUX team to meet these
expectations too.
By the way: "Cheetah" sounds, phonetically, a bit like "cheater",
at least
for a non-native english speaker like me - ..
no comment.
The reason behind my negative attitude is: I'm afraid of the UMN
Mapserver
being spoiled, since I made very good experiences by using
open-source-GIS-software in every aspect - technologically,
financial, in
terms of support - and unfortunatly quiet bad experiences with
commercial
GIS-software: expensive, slow, unstable.
I would really suggest that you try it out before making the
assumption that it is like any other software experience you have
had. You may find that you are surprised. Or not ;)
Sorry for this quite negative assessment, I really don't want to
offend
anyone, least of all the people who contributed so much of their
time and
energy to bring the UMN Mapserver to what it is today: the best
available
web-mapping solution. I admit I do not have even something like a
moral
right to influence the development of UMN Mapserver, since I did not
contribute to its code. Nevertheless, as a user of the UMN
Mapserver it's
part of my knowledge and my tool kit which might be affected
adversely, so I
am affected by that decisions, and that's why I have to express my
point of
view.
and now you have another tool with which to provide solutions. If
its feature set has what you need, and you find it is decent, then
you will use it. If not, then you won't.
Maybe there is still time to think if there is another way of
cooperation
between the UMN Mapserver community and Autodesk, a way which
respects the
spirit of the open source idea in a better way than the announced
"cooperation"?
Best regards,
Andre Karp
It is interesting to be discussing open source software with the
following disclaimer in your email ... that's a pretty closed license
on your comments. Wow ... am I even allowed to quote them or respond
to them?
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