[MapQuery] MapQuery status update

[Volker Mische]

Hi all,

I promised to write a mail on what was going at the FOSSGIS. I will just
be lazy and post the text from my blog [1] here :)

[1]
http://vmx.cx/cgi-bin/blog/index.cgi/fossgis-geocouch-mapquery:2011-04-19:en,CouchDB,GeoCouch,MapQuery,geo

Cheers,
  Volker

MapQuery is a web mapping framework that builds on
[OpenLayers](http://openlayers.org/) and [jQuery](http://jquery.com/).
The goal is a framework that is just as easy to use as jQuery combined
with the power of OpenLayers. It's meant for people that just want to
get started with web mapping, but also for those who have already
knowledge about OpenLayers and want to have easy integration into their
jQuery application.

I was able to show a quick demo of the MapQuery API at the FOSSGIS. I
won't publish it here, as things are about to move fast. After over one
year of discussions about MapQuery and only little code contributions,
it seems that we are finally getting somewhere. That feels so good :)

The wonderful [EduGIS](http://research.geodan.nl/edugis/) is build on an
early version of MapQuery ([source
code](https://gitorious.org/~edugis/mapquery/edugis-mapquery)), but will
be merged with the most recent version of [my
fork](https://gitorious.org/~vmx/mapquery/vmx-mapquery).

Other big news is that the [WhereGroup](http://www.wheregroup.com/)
hired [Christian Wygoda](http://crischan.net/blog/), who is a committer
of the MapQuery project. This also means that [Mapbender 3 will use
MapQuery](http://twitter.com//mapbender/status/55920881897193472).

And finally I've also met a developer of a another company that was
building a big mapping application based on OpenLayers and jQuery. I
don't want disclose it here, as the code isn't open source yet, but the
developer told me that it should be easily possible. I will keep in
touch with them and hope they will contribute their code to MapQuery.

To get to a conclusion about MapQuery. If you want to stay in touch with
the project, please subscribe to the [official mailing
list](http://www.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapquery), this is where
things are happening (there's also the little attended IRC channel
#mapquery on freenode). If you want to be a user of MapQuery, you should
be patient and wait a bit. If you plan to contribute, you can start now.
The currently biggest item is moving the EduGIS MapQuery code base over
to the MapQuery version of my fork. The "documententation" are the demos.