ESRI business partners

[Doug Nebert]

owner-mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu wrote:
> 
> I just spoke to an ESRI rep at the Penn State Web GIS Conference about
> this.
>   The idea as I understood it is that anyone can register their data on the
> geography network for download.  To make data available live, that is for
> pan and zoom, query, etc, you need to have a server that is OGC compliant.
> He said that server did not have to be ArcIMS.
> 
> Stephen Lime mentioned some time ago that OGC compliance was in works for
> MapServer.  That in my view is one of the most important development areas,
> and will really put MapServer in the game in a major way.  Any ideas on the
> amount of work that would take?  I would guess that one problem will be
> getting the OGC test bed specs as they are only available to those who are
> members...
> 

No, no: OpenGIS specifications are open, public specifications available
for direct and free download. They are only 'closed' when still under
development by Consortium members. They are published to the website
at http://www.opengis.org/techno/specs.htm (See section on 
Implementation Specs).

Web Mapping Service (WMS 1.0) was published almost a year ago and is 
the defacto target for consideration. Social Change Online, also members
of this list, programmed a WMS wrapper under contract to us (FGDC) so
our mapserver could be one of many WMS targets within the Web Mapping
Testbed activity. The WMS wrapper is written in perl but is not yet
packaged in a way I could tell you where all the parts must go. We run 
it both in Apache/Linux and IIS/Windows environments.

It would be ideal if mapserver could be modified to respond directly to
WMS requests sometime soon, though the wrapper is available for interim
use. I don't think an integrated WMS service would be hard but it'd
take a little architectural planning.

Doug Nebert
FGDC

> Ben Lewis
> Advanced Technology Solutions, Inc.
> Lancaster, PA
> 

-- 
Douglas D. Nebert
Geospatial Data Clearinghouse Coordinator 
FGDC/GSDI Secretariat	Phone: +1 703 648 4151	Fax: +1 703 648-5755	
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