[MSF-Discuss] Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Autodesk product naming poll

[Sean Gillies]

> On Wednesday 21 December 2005 22:22, Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>> I felt compelled to write back about this issue -- because I still feel
>> very strongly that there are many very good reasons for having a shared
>> 'MapServer' name with this new web mapping technology.
>
> A few notes on this. It's been over a month since the launch of the
> Foundation
> and the (in)voluntary name change. While it really comes in handy to
> leverage
> the Autodesk name when big names try to diss solutions based on mapserver,
> I've had problems with exactly that common part. It happens that from the
> several clients and persons involved in GIS projects I talked to regarding
> the role of Foundation and the (re)naming, not a SINGLE one of them got it
> right on their own. That was scary considering the near future of
> MapServer.
> I really don't want to FUD this but there were REALLY weird inceptions
> about
> what had happened a month ago in mapserver land. Some even thought
> Autodesk
> made a 'real' free web mapping solution for which they hired the original
> MapServer developers (since they saw the MS folks list at the Foundation
> site), who in turn gave up their 'lesser' product - guess which. Others
> outright asked when will we upgrade to the now freely available Enterprise
> version thinking what we used so far (the real MapServer) was a somehow
> crippled free version of the same for which Autodesk was so far afraid to
> associate with. All in all MASSIVE amounts of confusion I'm not sure I
> managed to dissolve in all heads and something I think no business wanted
> or
> was prepared to. And the root cause was exactly that common naming (not
> the
> existance of a Foundation or Autodesk per se), so one month later I'm less
> and less 'thrilled' about it, especially considering the aforementioned
> future of the MapServer we all knew and used. What does all this mean ?
> Nothing, really, these are only some of my personal experiences on this
> topic. Why am I writing this ? I'm hoping extra feedback will help the
> quick
> coder-to-product manager transition many of the excellent MapServer core
> contributors are taking now and makes them at least equally good open
> source
> project managers for the benefit of the MapServer community in the widest
> possible sense. Don't forget - the community is not code nor a country, so
> it
> should not be run as one, either.
>

Attila,

I have customers who have been equally confused by this project name
churning. A foundation could be a good thing, but trying to rebrand
MapServer at the same time is asking for trouble.

cheers,
Sean