Paul -
I think you may be right, although I think I was confused by Gary's
explanation.
I have to say, however, that this poll reminds me of Ross Perot's
famous
poll - "Do you support giving the President a line-item veto to cut
government waste?" Who's going to vote in favor of government waste?
Describing one option as "making open source web mapping the
platform of
choice" and the other as "competing directly with the new brand name
that will be created and heavily promoted by Autodesk" is rather far
from being a neutral presentation! If option (b) encompasses
something
like the scenario I mentioned (a "product line" name that is a new
name,
not derived from either existing brand, and product names based on the
"familiar" names currently in use) then yes, you're right. But that
wouldn't be "competing directly with the new brand name" any more than
"MapServer Cheetah" and "MapServer Enterprise" are, so I'm confused.
There is a big red herring about "competition" swimming about
here. The
product formerly known as Tux and the product formerly known as
MapServer ARE competing, and an endless debate about names isn't going
to change that. These are two "competitive" products, in that many
customers will choose between them because either one is a reasonable
starting point to solve their problem. Autodesk has announced that
they
plan to develop a commercial support and services business around the
product formerly known as Tux. That's fine, but that will inevitably
flavor their support and interest in any foundation in which that
product is one of several choices. If Autodesk did not want to
"compete" with MapServer, it could have directed its staff to work on
the many needed enhancements to the existing MapServer code base
rather
than continuing to build and release a completely separate body of
code.
I am *not* saying that this competition is a bad thing, nor am I
saying
that Autodesk should have done anything differently. But it is
misleading to claim that with the right branding and labeling one can
cause the products to not compete, or to think that if they're managed
by separate foundations they're competing and if they're managed by
the
same foundation they're not competing.
- Ed
Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA 01863
Phone: +1 (978) 251-4242
Fax: +1 (978) 251-1396
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Paul Spencer
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 10:30 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Poll: MapServer and Autodesk
Ed, Option B seems to cover that angle unless I am missing something?
Paul
On 22-Dec-05, at 8:43 PM, Ed McNierney wrote:
Gary -
You seem to be deliberately overlooking the rather obvious
solution of
removing the word "MapServer" from the Foundation's name. If one
were
to steal an idea from Tyler's editors and call it the "Web Mapping
Foundation", then many of the issues you describe below would go
away,
wouldn't they? The "WMF MapServer" and "WMF MapGuide" products are
both members of the WMF product family as much as a MapServer
Enterprise and MapServer Cheetah are members of the MapServer product
family, aren't they? I'm not trying to lobby for that particular
name, but rather to point out another route to a solution.
I guess that means I'd vote for (c).
- Ed
Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA 01863
Phone: +1 (978) 251-4242
Fax: +1 (978) 251-1396
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Gary Lang
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 6:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Poll: MapServer and Autodesk
Below is a note that Tyler Mitchell and I put together to help
describe some of the 'open letter' groups' thinking around the name
issue. There is also a new POLL related to it - please vote when you
have a minute. It will be very helpful to measuring peoples'
opinions.
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/polls/ms_autodesk
At the end of this message is a poll for you to vote on.
Those of us that signed the open letter may not have laid out exactly
what it meant to us to have a shared name brand. This note is an
attempt lay out those reasons clearly, so we all understand why we
thought it was important to share name brands.
Each of us knew that:
* MapServer has had a good history, significant market share and has
good equity in its name.
* Autodesk is a very successful company, with successful products and
has significant amounts of brand equity
* Autodesk were planning to release "Tux" as open source and continue
to develop it through an open source community
Autodesk had a choice to make: a) offer to work with MapServer to
find
common ground, to build synergies and not compete; or, b) set up
their
own open source geospatial software foundation as a home for their
product, develop their own independent branding for their product and
end up competing with MapServer.
In the spirit of open source, Autodesk engaged DM Solutions, UMN,
Steve Lime and other developers, etc. to try to find a way to work
together.
Granted, it was behind closed doors because an NDA was required for a
public company like Autodesk to even have such a conversation with
outsiders, but we thought we had a very good representation of the
leaders in the community.
Our collective thinking was that a common name for the products would
be ideal. Having both products under the same banner was good, but
only if both products and the foundation could share that common
name.
There was going to be potential for confusion, but sharing a common
prefix for two different products is not unheard of and it was going
to be a major change. We all wanted to keep building on MapServer
momentum instead of ignoring MapServer and building something
independent of it.
After all the feedback from the community, it's more than obvious
that
the naming is an major issue. But the naming of both the products
really represents the willingness to share the brand or not. A
"MapServer Foundation" cannot equally represent both MapServer and
MapGuide. The names are the brand. If a product can't use the name,
then it isn't using the brand.
Autodesk decided that it would rather take the harder road and work
with an existing community, than go it alone and work against that
community.
And the MapServer stakeholders decided they would take the hard road
and work with Autodesk to find a common path, rather then compete
head-to-head.
Then the story broke, and the MapServer community had the reaction
we all saw to the name. The general reaction to the announcement
outside of the MapServer community has actually been quite positive.
If a common name brand can't be used, then one alternative will be
that MapServer is not going to be leading the startup of a
foundation that can house both MapServer and Tux. As well, such a
foundation can not be called the "MapServer Foundation" any more
than it should be called the "MapGuide Foundation". In many ways,
voting against sharing the name brand is actually voting against
working with Autodesk on starting the MapServer Foundation.
Autodesk will not be willing to put their investment into a
foundation that hides their name brand under the name of another
web-based mapping project. It has already invested a lot of money
in promoting the "MapServer Foundation", which no one else has ever
done.
So this was the thinking and these are the choices. We didn't do
it all perfectly and not having broader community input was a real
problem. I wish that we could have put the following question out
there for community feedback from the very start.
Here is the poll question, please cast your vote and comment on the
poll online at:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/polls/ms_autodesk
-------------
What serves the MapServer Community best?
a) Work with Autodesk under the MapServer Foundation, creating a
unified brand name, with MapServer and Autodesk lending their
respective brand equities to each other and working together to
make open source web mapping the platform of choice.
b) Work with Autodesk to release its product through a foundation
with a different name such as "MapTools", with MapServer now
competing directly with the new brand name that will be created and
heavily promoted by Autodesk, even though they will likely be
housed by the same foundation.
Gary Lang
Tyler Mitchell
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