> I'm on record for thinking that co-branding is a good thing for > MapServer but I realize I'm in the minority. I've never been able to > eloquently express why I think it is a good thing ... I guess I just > think it is.
While I seem to fall on the other side on this one, I feel that co-branding is a great thing as well. By creating a foundation that many open source mapping projects can live under we are saying "Hey, these projects may be different as night & day, but the developers are share to a certain set of ideals and are committed to work together to forward common goals". I think that concept is bigger than any one project (Mapserver included), and I think it deserves a different brand (or name) to reflect that. In the long term, it is my hope that many projects, new and existing, might find their way to the foundation. > In the end, I don't really care that much as I now have two excellent > platforms for delivering solutions to my clients, two platforms that > share quite a bit of underlying technology but that approach the web > mapping problem from two different directions. Being able to say > "MapServer" to my clients regardless of what I was actually going to > do would, I feel, make my life easier ... but not sufficiently to get > in a knot over it :) I agree. Honestly when I say "Mapserver" to my clients/bosses/etc... all they hear is "Not ESRI". It is a scary world for them, because they don't understand that a support structure can exist even though a rep isn't knocking on your door and half-a-dozen copies of a newsletter aren't arriving every month. The creation of an umbrella foundation is a good step to solidifying the idea that a support network does exist. If there is a real entity I can point people to with a logo, and a slogan, and a newsletter, and multiple mature products/projects, they will feel much more comfortable. -Mike
