[mapguide-internals] Permanently drop the ArcSDE provider?

[Gabriele Monfardini]

> For those who don't know, the ArcSDE provider has been omitted from the last
> few pre-final builds of MapGuide Open Source 2.4 for the simple reason that
> the ESRI SDK needed to build this provider is not free (libre or beer).
>
> If we want to be a truly self-sustaining project and not rely on Autodesk
> for timely binary releases on any upstream components, we need to be able
> build the entire stack using completely free (libre or beer) tools and
> libraries.
>
> Since the ArcSDE provider does not fit in this category, I propose we just
> drop the ArcSDE provider altogether from the final, and future releases of
> MapGuide Open Source. Those who need a functional ArcSDE provider can seek
> an external build resource to provide an out-of-band release of the FDO
> provider or wait until Autodesk makes a new release of FDO with the ArcSDE
> provider.

I do not use ArcSDE provider thus my opinion may be biased.

I completely agree with Jackie.
An open source project need to be able to build its components using free tools.

And since is responsible of its code, it cannot provide help/fix/bug
track for code that cannot manage properly.

Regards,

Gabriele