feedback on possible mapserver enhancements

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 03:33:43PM -0500, Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
>> The driver is trying to keep client installation simple. The more 
>> packages and applications that need to be loaded on a webserver makes it 
>> much harder to sell the installation. If a client is not using python or 
>> java or tomcat, etc then you need to justify adding any of that into 
>> their infrastructure. Production sites are pretty locked down.
> 
> Sure, I understand that: but if you can get MapServer into someplace and
> *not* Python + FeatureServer, I'd be very surprised. How do you sell
> that one? What makes MapServer an easier sell? (And more importantly,
> how can the Open Source Geo-community solve that problem?)  

I did say you can't. I said it is harder. You have to discuss the 
alternatives and the tradeoffs between them. You need to have some 
knowledge about the various environments that you are proposing. I know 
mapserver, I have been using it everyday for about 8 years. The problem 
is that every time someone writes some new tool in their language du 
jour then there is one more environment that I have to learn, support 
and sell if I want to use it when bidding a job.

>> So, I stand by my use-case with the possible modification that maybe it 
>> doesn't need to be WFS-T.
> 
> Your use case is what, exactly? "I can't install any programs on the
> production server, and I want to serve maps and edit features" clearly
> isn't it, since if that was the case, you couldn't install MapServer:
> what gives MapServer the pass, while FeatureServer is stopped at the
> gate?  

It is not about one gets a pass and one doesn't, it is about the level 
of effort required to learn, support and sell multiple environments.

Anyway, this is not about me, I would be interested in why other people 
where asking for this kind of support in mapserver. Maybe no one else 
has these problems, and if that is the case we don't need to solve them 
just for me.

Best regards,
   -Steve W