[Incubator] MapFish Incubation application - reactivation

[Cédric Moullet]

Hi Cameron,
Thanks for this question. I am not a geomajas specialist, but i ll try to give some answers.
The main similarity is probably that mapfish and geomajas share the same goal: providing a way to create web mapping applications. 
But behind the scene, there is a lot of differences. Probably like the differences between mapserver and geoserver.
So let s have a look at the server side. For mapfish, we are in the python world. Mapfish server can be seen as the geospatial extension of the pylons web development framework. Existing components are used like shapely,geojson, sqlalchemy in order to offer geospatial REST services for querying, inserting, updating and deleting spatial data. One important point is that mapfish is not a cartographic server. Mapserver, geoserver or mapguide ,... are used for the rendering.
Geomajas server is a java development which probably uses libraries like jts. As far as i know, the rendering part is a custom development and doesnt use geoerver.
On the client side, mapfish is using javascript libraries like openlayers, extjs and geoext. These libraries will allow the developer to create user interfaces communicating with servers.
Geomajas client ui are built through the gwt approach. As far as i know, dojo is used. For the maps, a custom developement has been made and openlayers is not used.
In general, with mapfish, we don t want to reinvent the wheel. That is why we use existing components (pylons,shapely,sqlalchemy,geojson,openlayers,extjs, geoext). Our goal is to make that all these components work well together and to add only the missing functions. For example, it takes 1 minute to install mapfish client and server. After this installation the developer can start building an application and uses the power of all the mentionned components.
I hope this provides valuable information. You can have a look at the mapfish blog: the presentation i gave last friday can be downloaded.
Best regards,
Cedric
(from my mobile phone)

----- Message d'origine -----
De: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at lisasoft.com>
Env: mardi, 27. octobre 2009 15:08
À: Claude Philipona <claude.philipona at camptocamp.com>
Cc: Dirk Frigne <dirk.frigne at geosparc.com>; Mapfish Users <users at mapfish.org>; Mapfish Dev <dev at mapfish.org>; incubator at lists.osgeo.org
Objet: Re: [Incubator] MapFish Incubation application - reactivation

At FOSS4G, I was introduced to GeoMajas http://www.geomajas.org/
This project provides similar functionality to MapFish, and before 
moving into MapFish into incubation, I'd be interested to hear a 
discussion about the similarities and differences between the two 
projects. In particular, I'd be interested to hear whether there are 
opportunities to share libraries between projects. (We gain more by 
focusing our developers on one project rather than splitting between many).

Claude Philipona wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'd like to point to the ticket 293 (MapFish Incubation application
> http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/293), more than a year old, for
> which the incubation committee hasn't given any answer yet.
>
> The experiences and discussions at the FOSS4G conference clearly shows
> the large interest and the need for such a framework in the FOSS4G
> ecosystem. Since last year, the number of users, organizations,
> companies implementing or contributing to MapFish has continuously
> increased. MapFish fills some holes as a high end webmapping
> framework, now that some projects using previous generation technology
> are stalling or slowly dying. A PSC is being set-up with a large
> representation from different organizations, countries, background.
>
> All the criteria for Incubation are fully met and it is now really a
> good time, as I've discussed with several members of the incubation
> committee, to start incubation as the MapFish just went through one
> lifecycle and is just starting the next one with important strategic
> decision.
>
> We will discuss the project organization during the BoF 2 hours from
> now and I hope we can take the chance to discuss afterwards with
> members of the Incubation Committee to quickly go on the further steps
> leading to incubation start.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Claude
> _______________________________________________
> Incubator mailing list
> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>   


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
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