[Mapserver-users] Open Source economy 101 ;) (was: Fastest Data Format)

[Daniel Morissette]

Jean-Francois.Doyon at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca wrote:
> 
> And yes, it is unfortunate in some ways that MapServer isn't GPL, because
> I'm sure there are LOTS of enhancements to MapServer that exist out there
> that were never returned to the community, which is unfortunate. We often
> hear talk about CFX's for MapServer, or a COM implementation ... I know of
> at least one instance of this occuring. Not to mention this also creates
> duplication of effort in many cases I'm sure.
> 

I agree that it is unfortunate that some enhancements are never returned
to the core, but I think it's a part of life that we have to get used
to. 

My intention is not to start yet another license debate, but I don't
agree that things would be better if MapServer was using a GPL license. 
Personally I find GPL too restrictive and I think it would hurt us if
MapServer was using GPL.  OGR is a very good example where a more
flexible license (MIT/X11 license, same as MapServer) has helped the
cause: OGR is used in a few proprietary softwares and most of the
drivers in OGR were funded by those organizations using it.  If OGR had
been using a GPL license then those companies would not have been able
to use it, those drivers would never have been implemented, and nobody
would be able to read DGN and TAB files in MapServer today, just to name
those two.

My 0.02$ :)

Daniel
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 Daniel Morissette               morissette at dmsolutions.ca
 DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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