> On Wednesday 21 December 2005 22:22, Dave McIlhagga wrote: >> I felt compelled to write back about this issue -- because I still feel >> very strongly that there are many very good reasons for having a shared >> 'MapServer' name with this new web mapping technology. > > A few notes on this. It's been over a month since the launch of the > Foundation > and the (in)voluntary name change. While it really comes in handy to > leverage > the Autodesk name when big names try to diss solutions based on mapserver, > I've had problems with exactly that common part. It happens that from the > several clients and persons involved in GIS projects I talked to regarding > the role of Foundation and the (re)naming, not a SINGLE one of them got it > right on their own. That was scary considering the near future of > MapServer. > I really don't want to FUD this but there were REALLY weird inceptions > about > what had happened a month ago in mapserver land. Some even thought > Autodesk > made a 'real' free web mapping solution for which they hired the original > MapServer developers (since they saw the MS folks list at the Foundation > site), who in turn gave up their 'lesser' product - guess which. Others > outright asked when will we upgrade to the now freely available Enterprise > version thinking what we used so far (the real MapServer) was a somehow > crippled free version of the same for which Autodesk was so far afraid to > associate with. All in all MASSIVE amounts of confusion I'm not sure I > managed to dissolve in all heads and something I think no business wanted > or > was prepared to. And the root cause was exactly that common naming (not > the > existance of a Foundation or Autodesk per se), so one month later I'm less > and less 'thrilled' about it, especially considering the aforementioned > future of the MapServer we all knew and used. What does all this mean ? > Nothing, really, these are only some of my personal experiences on this > topic. Why am I writing this ? I'm hoping extra feedback will help the > quick > coder-to-product manager transition many of the excellent MapServer core > contributors are taking now and makes them at least equally good open > source > project managers for the benefit of the MapServer community in the widest > possible sense. Don't forget - the community is not code nor a country, so > it > should not be run as one, either. >
Attila, I have customers who have been equally confused by this project name churning. A foundation could be a good thing, but trying to rebrand MapServer at the same time is asking for trouble. cheers, Sean
