My MapServer Foundation thoughts

[Tyler Mitchell]

Hi guys,
As you probably already know, I believe today's announcements are something 
worth being exciting about.  Allow me to clarify my thoughts on this a bit 
and maybe help put things in a different light.

Foundation is only begun
In a nutshell, several groups and individuals have agreed that a foundation is 
a good idea and they want to see it move forward.  Someone, at some point had 
to at least start talking about how to do this.  There have been no final 
decisions about how it will run, what it will do or even how much funding it 
requires.  All that's been decided is that there will be a foundation and 
that Autodesk wants to contribute code to it.  That is what has happened, the 
rest is unwritten and open for the community to decide.

Autodesk's Role
The assumption that Autodesk has somehow rolled in and taken the best seat in 
the house is far from the truth.  We debated the issues such as naming and 
branding.  Our group became comfortable with the ideas and thought they could 
at least serve as a starting place for community discussion.  There was no 
name stealing, these were mutually debated and agreed upon ideas.  No one was 
forced to sign the open letter.  We could have told Autodesk to take their 
product and head out the door and they would have.  Instead we tried to find 
the best possible way to work with them and build on the momentum around 
their open source announcements.  We debated and struggled to get to where we 
are, but we also found some common ground.

I see your point about DM and Autodesk's press release as being a PR win for 
them, but what I see is a win for the MapServer community in general.  We got 
some great PR - more than we could have mustered on our own.  Both those 
companies can speak for themselves, but I know they are excited about the 
foundation and how it can help the community.  Are they interested in running 
the foundation?  Not at all.  Are they going to stack the deck and push it 
around?  Impossible - you and I won't let it happen.  An important function 
of the foundation is to protect MapServer from being controlled by any 
individual company or organisation be that Autodesk, DM Solutions, UMN or 
anyone else.  So why talk as if Autodesk is taking over the world when it is 
still, and always will be, a community effort?  I, for one, would never have 
signed the letter if I felt the MapServer community or the product were in 
jeopardy.

I appreciate the concern from those of you who have built your businesses on 
MapServer, I certainly don't have as much at stake.  But what I don't 
understand is why, for the broader community's benefit, the PR issue is such 
a barrier.  Is that really standing in the way of your wanting to be involved 
in what you argue is a good idea?

Tyler