ADSK and the MapServer Foundation - tying the threads together

[Ed McNierney]

Gary -

You wrote:

"1) We could have gone it alone and been public about that from day one.
However, that gave us no options for stakeholder consultation and meant
we would have to try to bridge the gap with MapServer after effectively
attacking it.

2) Or, from day one, we could ask those who represent the widest number
of MapServer stakeholders - i.e. the steering committee - if we could
have a preliminary conversation about what to do."

You (and DM Solutions, and everyone else) omitted option #3 - ask the
community.  The TECHNICAL steering committee represents one segment of
that community.

"Dear MapServer community -

We have been approached by a potential partner interested in working
with us to create a MapServer Foundation.  We'd like to pursue this, but
we need your support.  This partner is a commercial firm, and due to the
nature of the proposal, the discussions will need to take place under a
non-disclosure agreement.  We need a small working group for this
project.  It would be great to have some representation from users,
consultants, developers, etc. to cover all of our interests; but you'll
need to make a serious commitment to this, and be bound by that NDA.
Our partner will need to be able to disqualify anyone from the list.
When we have an approved committee list, we'll let everyone know who's
involved.  We realize this is a little unusual, but it's the only way to
keep talking about this, and we think it's worth it."

Autodesk would, of course, need to realize that this is a little
unusual, too, and one of the lessons to be learned about working with
the open source community.  Nothing would be disclosed, the community
would be on notice that something was happening, and the discussion
wouldn't be limited to the people known best by the first folks you made
contact with.

	- 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
ed at topozone.com