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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Folks,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>I want to answer questions and continue to try to learn
what the concerns are. I thought I’d sit down and write a longer mail
about the discussions I see taking place around all this. The responses seem to
range from thoughtful to paranoid. So clearly the inability to speak freely has
not been our friend. I have triedi to explain why we needed to be quiet about
it, and hopefully that adds to the understanding. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>It is good to be able to speak freely about all this, at
last. I have been very uncomfortable with only being able to speak to a limited
set of stakeholders, but unable to see a way around the legal issues our legal
team put in front of us before undertaking all this. Let me give some
background on how we got here. <br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>About two years ago I kicked off a project to rewrite
MapGuide so that it would be a first-class citizen on Linux. The current
MapGuide is Windows-centric to the core. To me, trying to do web-mapping in
2003 that didn’t support Linux was a non-starter. The team agreed and off
we went.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>We started off using ACE and BDB as foundation
technologies, used SWIG for generating our API infrastructure, and switched to
SQLite for the geodatabase, and created the FDO framework for accessing
multiple data types through a modular architecture that is sort of like JDO but
with a geospatial slant (hence “Feature Data Object”). At the start
of the project, on instinct, I asked the engineers to please make their code as
readable and as easy to change as possible, as if someone from outside the
company would read it some day.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>We really valued the open source components we were using and
started to wonder how to give something back to the open source world. About a
year ago, we visited a friend of mine who was the CEO at Ximian, which had been
recently acquired by Novell. We spent a lot of time with Nat and Miguel who
encouraged us to think hard about open source. We were thinking about some
minor products. They encouraged us to think about Tux after hearing about it. We
listened carefully and took lots of notes. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>A little less than a year ago, I began to believe that, as
we were selling more applications the web server components, maybe our users
would be better served by an open source process for the Map server tier. It
turned out that DMSolutions and some of our people in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Ottawa</st1:place></st1:City> worked at the same company a few years
ago, and we got together through one of these mutual ex-Tydav people. I decided
to disclose them on our idea to see if it made any sense, and initially to try
to convince them to maybe switch. Imagine the headlines – “Autodesk
Goes Open Source! DMSolutions Ditches MapServer for MapGuide!.” This was a
dumb idea, and a non-starter for DMS. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
Instead of convincing them to switch, they convinced us to work with the
MapServer community in a way that was non-competitive. To explore this further,
we asked some of the recommended folks to sign an NDA so that we could tell
them about Tux and about our crazy idea to be the first vendor in this space to
go open source with their product, and a new one at that.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
To answer one of your questions: there is no perceived benefit to this being a
secret. In fact, it's not good from any perspective including ours. There
simply was no other way for us to explore this idea with the MapServer
community at large. Let me explain.<br>
<br>
In Ed’s email, he referenced the following comment: "</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>And you
replied, "You do it in an open, inclusive way that opens the discussion to
all stakeholders, not just a self-selected few. You don't ask us to sign
non-disclosure agreements and deliberately exclude the majority of the community."<br>
<br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>I would ask folks to please go back and read Dave's email
with respect to Autodesk being a public company. Unfortunately, we do not have
the freedom to speculate in public or hand out our source code without some
sort of framework like the foundation or an NDA. So we had two choices:<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><font
size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>1)<font size=1 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></font></span></span></font><![endif]><font
size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>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.<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><font
size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>2)<font size=1 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></font></span></span></font><![endif]><font
size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>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. <br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Those were really our only two choices. The bottom line is
that a public company can't speculate on a mailing list about what it should or
should not do. If we disagree on this point, let’s send our lawyers off to
argue about it, but I am not in a position to disagree with ours in any event.<br>
<br>
Now that the cat's out of the bag, I can say that we are much happier
approaching open source this way rather than doing it ourselves. We hope others
will feel the same once they understand the two options we had. Maybe we could
have been more creative and found a third way. As a model for future
participants or even to help me in any future open source work I'll do (and
I'll do more in my career, I am certain), any suggestions would be appreciated.<br>
<br>
Some things you will see as the weeks progress with respect to Autodesk's
involvement:<br>
<br>
a) We will participate in establishing the foundation, which, contrary to what
has been said here, is already a legal entity. However, we will not drive the
foundation. It would undermine our goals to do this. <br>
<br>
b) We will give our code - about 60 man-years of sweat and blood by people who
love their work--to the foundation. This is a non-trivial thing. Do the math on
the cost and think about projects you’ve worked on that take 2 years of
hard work. We are contributing something too.<br>
<br>
c) we will be a minority vote in any foundation configuration. I am limiting
Autodesk's participation to two people - myself and one other person - both
engineers. I expect the MapServer membership to be some multiple of that. As it
is, the current discussion and decision process observes the ratio you see on
the open letter signature list - 1 to 10, Autodesk to MapServer. We will never
have control of the MapServer Foundation’s board.<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>d) we will contribute code to MapServer as well as
continue to work on the code we <br>
are contributing which I'll refer to as MSE for short. We will give away our
FDO framework for ArcSDE, SHP, ODBC, MySQL, etc. We will make this work with
MapServer.<br>
<br>
Finally, I hope people can continue to be respectful of the signers of the open
letter. They are nobody's fools and nobody's tools and will simply use this
opportunity to strengthen their efforts. That's more than fine with us. Also
keep in mind that as <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Tyler</st1:City></st1:place>
said, every press release and FAQ we've produced was reviewed by that group of
people. If someone (who is "Seba"?) decided to forward an Autodesk
press release from Yahoo to /. instead of the open letter, we have no more
control over that any more than we control the MapServer community or the
steering committee. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
MapServer should continue to grow and, believe me, it's in our interest to see
it grow. We obviously hope people will look at the code we're contributing as
well, but we're just happy to be in the open now. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Now that we're past the initial step of disclosure, the
discussion should be as wide open as possible. We are all actively talking to
other entities about sponsoring the MapServer Foundation. Just as we don't want
Autodesk to be the driver of the community we would like to see more
involvement by other players in the GIS world. <br>
<br>
I hope this answers some questions and generates more. I look forward to your
feedback. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Gary Lang<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>gary.lang@autodesk.com<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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