Poll: MapServer and Autodesk

[Mike Davis]

> a) Work with Autodesk under the MapServer Foundation, creating a unified
> brand name, with MapServer and Autodesk lending their respective brand
> equities to each other and working together to make open source web mapping
> the platform of choice.
>
> b) Work with Autodesk to release its product through a foundation with a
> different name such as "MapTools", with MapServer now competing directly
> with the new brand name that will be created and heavily promoted by
> Autodesk, even though they will likely be housed by the same foundation.

Wow, this really sounds like a "with us" or "with us but against us"
choice you've laid out.  I thing the spirit of a foundation should be
to bring together disparate projects with the intent of furthering the
goals of GIS and Mapping based on open standards.

You are absolutely right that the Mapserver name carries a certain brand equity.

Given time to develop under a common foundation, I think MapGuide/Tux
will build a similar reputation, and hopefully a similar community. 
If the idea of an umbrella foundation has legs, hopefully many other
projects sprout up with similar success.

If not, many of the best pieces will probably be incorporated with the
best pieces of Mapserver and it will live on in that way (antialiased
lines anyone?).  The key is that the Mapserver community did not grow
overnight.  Autodesk cannot expect the existing community to embrace a
totally separate piece of software any more than they can expect to
instantly inherit their own dedicated developer/user community just by
teaming up with an existing project.

Approach the Mapserver project as equals.  Give people a chance to
test the waters.  They will vote in the only way that really counts...
by using the software, and contributing back to its development.

So in the end I vote for B... with the caveat that the attitude that
projects in a foundation are in competition is absolutely 100% the
wrong one to have.

-Mike