[mapserver-dev] Tile Access API

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 11:37:01AM -0500, Steve Lime wrote:
> I still favor more off then on by default. For most of the OGC
> services you need to explicitly configure them for them to be useful
> anyway so in that case off by default makes more sense to me. The CGI
> should really be the only default service. Plus, in most cases a
> mapfile is configured for 1 maybe two services and it's much easier to
> turn 2 things on than 10 things off.

Turning off WMS by default will break many existing OpenLayers
applications, and make the 'first step' to getting OpenLayers set up
significantly more difficult. Just getting people to add wms_srs metdata
is hard enough, and in the beginning of the project was one of the most 
common questions for people setting up their own data. (Since then, most 
users have stopped using MapServer in favor of OpenStreetMap, so that's
a more common initial data setup question, at least of the ones I
field.)

The entire reason for the OpenLayers.Layer.MapServer is because the WMS
setup step was too difficult for people at the time, either becacuse
they couldn't figure it out or because they didn't have control over the
server. (This also means that the primary reason for defaulting these
services to off -- that it prevents unexpected access -- isn't really
true, since OpenLayers is designed to act against the CGI interface
directly...)

I think that (as Frank suggested) something which defaults to at least
some services on if it's not set is valuable. 

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
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