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[ender at titan.lab.csuchico.edu]

Hello,

  I have been working on a system similar to mapserver for about a year,
and was pleasantly supprised when I came across the mapserver website.  I
have a few issues with the server in it's current state, and am wondering
if this is an open project or mostly a personal one which happens to be
open source.

  One of my main issues with the system is the degree to which it depends
on the gd library (and thus, the indexed image format used therein).  In
my own shapefile renderer, I have been using a 32bit RGBA array as my
image format, with functions to load/save from various graphics/spatial
data formats.  In reguard to the recent discussion about distributed
rendering of image planes, with the master server slapping the planes
together, this could be accomplished much easier if the individual
distributed renderers did not have to worry about using up a colormap.

  Several other design issues, as well as questions of extensibility (new
data formats), have led me to question whether a complete redesign of your
system is in order.  I have been trying to decide whether I wanted to
attempt to merge the mapserver layout/parsing engine with my own code, but
I wanted to get the opinions of those actually working on the mapserver
code first.

  Are there any current plans to redesign the mapserver system?  If so,
will it be open for discussion among those using the system?

  I will go through the mailing list archives to see if any of these
questions have already been brought forward and answered, but would
appreciate any response I can get.

Thanks,

Aaron Stafford
ender at gic.csuchico.edu

Geographic Information Center
California State University, Chico