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<DIV>David,</DIV>
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<DIV>You asked a couple of questions here. One was the reuse of distributed mapping with Google Maps, a way of doing this is with a WMS overlay. Mapserver can generate this type of map image, which can be used in a number of opensource client frame works besides Google maps. It can be somewhat limiting though with regard to how much extra data you can add to the user experience, with our actaully usiong the Google API, which has it's own usage licenses.</DIV>
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<DIV>Your other question was related to individuals managing their own data. This is going to sound a lot like a plug for my project, but . . . I'm part of a group that builds a Client Framework that I think may answer that end of the equation for you. The Project is GeoMoose. It was built with the primary purpose of abstracting the data maintenance tasks out, so that individuals or smaller groups, which may or may not have a background in GIS, can manage and publish their own data without a systems administrator being involved. Every layer, and for that matter, tool or display option is considered a service of some sort, and these services are collected at start up by the GeoMoose client at start up for display. Thisis all controlled by a XML file we call a MapBook which describes the services and catalog items for use. More than one MapBook can be configured for a set of services, so many interfaces to the same data are possible, and even this level of control can be abstracted out of the Systems admins control if needed. One service that GeoMoose understands is a WMS service. It also can use MapServer as a image/data source for things like popups, and highlighting. Because everything is treated as a service, a broken service won't break the whole interface, only that service, so a service provider can't bring the whole system down.</DIV>
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<DIV>GeoMoose is built around the idea of a distributed publishing system.</DIV>
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<DIV>Hope some of that helps.</DIV>
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<DIV>bobb</DIV>
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<DIV>Your se<BR><BR>>>> "David H. McCoy" <davidhmccoy@COX.NET> wrote:<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="PADDING-LEFT: 7px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 15px; BORDER-LEFT: #050505 1px solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f3f3f3">Hello!<BR>I'm new to Mapserver and trying to understand something. I'm working for=<BR>=20<BR>company that has an application with a mapping component. Currently, that=<BR>=20<BR>component uses Google maps. I am replacing the Google Maps API with=20<BR>Openlayers and the mapping component with Mapserver. The goal is that whi=<BR>le=20<BR>a customer can elect to use say Google maps, they can also host the maps=20=<BR><BR>internally, thus having no external dependencies.=20<BR><BR>In additional to server maps, does Map server actually have maps availabl=<BR>e?=20<BR>Perhaps a better question would be are there any open source or freeware=20=<BR><BR>apps comparable to Google maps that I can retrieve for local use and util=<BR>ize in=20<BR>Mapserver?<BR><BR>Thanks for your time.<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>