[OSGeo-Discuss] a question for my search

[Jody Garnett]

fabri wrote:
> Hello,
> excuse my English, but I am Italian.
I think you will find a couple of good Italian email lists.
> I am doing a search on webgis open source software.  can someone tell 
> me what are the advantages and disadvantages in using mapserver, 
> mapguide or others?
It is hard for us to recommend one over the other; since we all like to 
work together and each project has different strengths and weaknesses. 
How about you join the Italian email list and describe the problem you 
are trying to solve - perhaps one of the products will be a good fit.

In general:
- MapGuide allows you to build a complete website and manage a lot of 
your artifacts such as page layouts. The project is is relatively new 
and did not support many standards when I last looked at it.
- MapServer - is known by all and loved by many, it provides an 
excellent implementation of WMS, the WFS support is read-only
- GeoServer - provides an implementation of WMS and read-write WFS. 
Supports a range of formats from PDF to KML.

You will also find that there are consulting shops (including several in 
Italy) that can help evaluate your needs. Choosing open source is tricky 
business; you may find it worth while to go to a conference and see 
these products in action.

Cheers,
Jody