[geomoose-psc] When Open Specs Close

[Brent Fraser]

Hi Dan (and others),

So many things to consider, but to stay focused I would say: 

Keep it simple, and stick to what we're good at: integrating best of class packages (such as mapserver, GeoServer, and OpenLayers).

I would look for a good mapserver mapfile editor (or style creator) project and integrate that into our workflows.

https://github.com/MapServer/MapServer/wiki/MapFile-Editors

As for vector styling (especially via GM's mapbook), do we have any users interested in doing that?  If we do, something like GeoStyler might be the answer.  Our involvement could be as simple as adding How-to (or even just a link) to our doc.

A couple of years ago I started writing a GeoMoose Implementation Roadmap to help new users create a working site with their data.  It was scary how much text file editing you had to do on the server (and you better get the syntax right).

Best Regards,

Brent

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From: "Dan Little via geomoose-psc" <geomoose-psc at lists.osgeo.org>
Sent: 12/14/23 9:25 AM
To: GeoMOOSE PSC <geomoose-psc at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [geomoose-psc] When Open Specs Close

- https://github.com/openlayers/ol-mapbox-style/pull/940#issuecomment-1855415159

We use a "vendored" version of the ol-mapbox-style-spec to power GeoMoose's styling right now. This may have an effect on us over the next few months that motivate moving some of the styling engine over to something like GeoStyler's. 

This does force me to shine light on a few GeoMoose things that I've been struggling with in the last two years:

1. How can we keep being the "plug-in-data-and-go" solution? How do we become the best at that? MapServer can feel very difficult to work with despite its performance. I think MapServer 8 is a great piece of software and I understand many of the design decisions but if I've grown up on E**I stuff, at this point, it'll be difficult to approach.

2. How can we get better at vector styling? This may be Ahab's Whale but is definitely something I think about. Styling in the app, styling data, how do we serve data that is easy to style? Etc. etc.

Things I know we can't make a part of our standard install and expect easy uptake:

- Cloud

- Docker

- "Compile."

There are solutions I would love to think about but have left off the table:

- Create a mapfile editor. It's been tried but with narrow constraints it might work.

- Jump to QGIS server and/or piggy back on it to allow publishing whole apps. Keeping up with these changes are likely a full time job.

- "F**k it, we're the mapserver now!" Collaborate with or upon a solution written in rust or go that support cross platform compilation. Double click a binary, it starts the server, go through the wizard to tell it where some data is, and you're off to the races. Want it as a service? Sure here's the 10-step guide to making it work with pm2 or on Debian.

Thank you for taking the space for this. 😆 I genuinely want us to have a product that people can use, use easily, and provide some real benefit to the ecosystem in ways other projects aren't. I love that this team has always focused on what it takes to do GIS in the trenches and what that user profile looks like.
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