[mapguide-users] Fusion Templates for FF3

[Paul Spencer]

I can't speak for Autodesk, but in general there is always a delay  
between an Open Source project and commercial products based on that  
project.  A commercial product typically goes through a lengthy  
release cycle that involves rigorous testing, documentation,  
marketing, and packaging.  In my experience, a commercial product will  
be based on a stable version of an Open Source project followed by  
6-12 months of release cycle.  For this reason, the commercial product  
will be at least 6-12 months behind the Open Source project (Apple's  
Safari web browser is significantly behind it's Open Source WebKit  
project for instance).

Commercial companies, at least ones that are publicly traded, are  
legally prevented from talking about future versions of their  
software.  So while you might hear that a company has a road map for a  
particular product, it will always be presented in such a way as to  
not promise any particular feature for any particular release.

The best place to get information about what is coming in MapGuide  
Open Source is on the mapguide-dev list, as this is where new features  
are discussed among developers and in some cases voted on by the  
project steering committee.  MapGuide Open Source has a reasonably  
rigorous RFC (request for comment) process where major changes are  
documented for all to see.

So, for instance, the adoption of CSMap (its no longer commercial) is  
discussed here:

http://trac.osgeo.org/mapguide/wiki/MapGuideRfc55

You will note that it is proposed to be included in the 2.1 release.   
It is difficult, however, with an Open Source project to commit to a  
specific release date because the project is often in a state of flux  
and a release requires some stability in the code base.  But in  
general, the MapGuide Open Source steering committee tries for a  
couple of releases per year.

I hope this helps clarify where things are at.

On 19-Sep-08, at 12:26 PM, Rock Beans wrote:

> Paul,
>
> Thank you for the direct information on these topics. Sometimes the
> public feels like there is a delay between MapGuide and the Autodesk
> products which causes frustration. Is there a place to get news on
> these type of latest and greatest informational topics? For example,
> when will the commercial coordinate system be released within MapGuide
> OS? I think this would help the lack of information provided to us by
> Autodesk. Thanks again!
>
> Best Regards,
> The Rock
>
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 7:50 AM, Paul Spencer <pagameba at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> Just to clarify - the MapGuide templates belong to the MapGuide  
>> project, not
>> to Fusion.
>>
>> We are currently doing a major overhaul in Fusion to improve  
>> performance
>> (funded primarily by Autodesk, thanks!) among other things -  
>> updating the
>> templates to work with the new code is not yet part of that work,  
>> but it
>> will get done in due course.  For now, please avoid using the trunk  
>> version
>> of Fusion (use the 1.0 or 1.1 branches only).
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> On 18-Sep-08, at 5:07 PM, Rock Beans wrote:
>>
>>> Where do I get the latest Fusion templates for MapGuide? I checked
>>> fusion svn and the mapguide svn. MapGuide has nothing about fusion  
>>> so
>>> who creates the initial templates like "Slate"?
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> mapguide-users mailing list
>>> mapguide-users at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapguide-users
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mapguide-users mailing list
>> mapguide-users at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapguide-users
>>
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