Poll: MapServer and Autodesk
Ed McNierney
ed at TOPOZONE.COM
Thu Dec 22 19:48:28 PST 2005
Paul -
I think you may be right, although I think I was confused by Gary's
explanation.
I have to say, however, that this poll reminds me of Ross Perot's famous
poll - "Do you support giving the President a line-item veto to cut
government waste?" Who's going to vote in favor of government waste?
Describing one option as "making open source web mapping the platform of
choice" and the other as "competing directly with the new brand name
that will be created and heavily promoted by Autodesk" is rather far
from being a neutral presentation! If option (b) encompasses something
like the scenario I mentioned (a "product line" name that is a new name,
not derived from either existing brand, and product names based on the
"familiar" names currently in use) then yes, you're right. But that
wouldn't be "competing directly with the new brand name" any more than
"MapServer Cheetah" and "MapServer Enterprise" are, so I'm confused.
There is a big red herring about "competition" swimming about here. The
product formerly known as Tux and the product formerly known as
MapServer ARE competing, and an endless debate about names isn't going
to change that. These are two "competitive" products, in that many
customers will choose between them because either one is a reasonable
starting point to solve their problem. Autodesk has announced that they
plan to develop a commercial support and services business around the
product formerly known as Tux. That's fine, but that will inevitably
flavor their support and interest in any foundation in which that
product is one of several choices. If Autodesk did not want to
"compete" with MapServer, it could have directed its staff to work on
the many needed enhancements to the existing MapServer code base rather
than continuing to build and release a completely separate body of code.
I am *not* saying that this competition is a bad thing, nor am I saying
that Autodesk should have done anything differently. But it is
misleading to claim that with the right branding and labeling one can
cause the products to not compete, or to think that if they're managed
by separate foundations they're competing and if they're managed by the
same foundation they're not competing.
- Ed
Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA 01863
Phone: +1 (978) 251-4242
Fax: +1 (978) 251-1396
ed at topozone.com
-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Paul Spencer
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 10:30 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Poll: MapServer and Autodesk
Ed, Option B seems to cover that angle unless I am missing something?
Paul
On 22-Dec-05, at 8:43 PM, Ed McNierney wrote:
> Gary -
>
> You seem to be deliberately overlooking the rather obvious solution of
> removing the word "MapServer" from the Foundation's name. If one were
> to steal an idea from Tyler's editors and call it the "Web Mapping
> Foundation", then many of the issues you describe below would go away,
> wouldn't they? The "WMF MapServer" and "WMF MapGuide" products are
> both members of the WMF product family as much as a MapServer
> Enterprise and MapServer Cheetah are members of the MapServer product
> family, aren't they? I'm not trying to lobby for that particular
> name, but rather to point out another route to a solution.
>
> I guess that means I'd vote for (c).
>
> - Ed
> Ed McNierney
> President and Chief Mapmaker
> TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
> 73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
> North Chelmsford, MA 01863
> Phone: +1 (978) 251-4242
> Fax: +1 (978) 251-1396
> ed at topozone.com
>
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER- USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Gary Lang
> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 6:50 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Poll: MapServer and Autodesk
>
> Below is a note that Tyler Mitchell and I put together to help
> describe some of the 'open letter' groups' thinking around the name
> issue. There is also a new POLL related to it - please vote when you
> have a minute. It will be very helpful to measuring peoples'
> opinions.
>
>
>
> http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/polls/ms_autodesk
>
>
>
> At the end of this message is a poll for you to vote on.
>
>
>
> Those of us that signed the open letter may not have laid out exactly
> what it meant to us to have a shared name brand. This note is an
> attempt lay out those reasons clearly, so we all understand why we
> thought it was important to share name brands.
>
>
>
> Each of us knew that:
>
>
> * MapServer has had a good history, significant market share and has
> good equity in its name.
>
>
> * Autodesk is a very successful company, with successful products and
> has significant amounts of brand equity
>
>
> * Autodesk were planning to release "Tux" as open source and continue
> to develop it through an open source community
>
>
>
> Autodesk had a choice to make: a) offer to work with MapServer to find
> common ground, to build synergies and not compete; or, b) set up their
> own open source geospatial software foundation as a home for their
> product, develop their own independent branding for their product and
> end up competing with MapServer.
>
>
>
> In the spirit of open source, Autodesk engaged DM Solutions, UMN,
> Steve Lime and other developers, etc. to try to find a way to work
> together.
>
> Granted, it was behind closed doors because an NDA was required for a
> public company like Autodesk to even have such a conversation with
> outsiders, but we thought we had a very good representation of the
> leaders in the community.
>
>
>
> Our collective thinking was that a common name for the products would
> be ideal. Having both products under the same banner was good, but
> only if both products and the foundation could share that common name.
> There was going to be potential for confusion, but sharing a common
> prefix for two different products is not unheard of and it was going
> to be a major change. We all wanted to keep building on MapServer
> momentum instead of ignoring MapServer and building something
> independent of it.
>
>
>
> After all the feedback from the community, it's more than obvious that
> the naming is an major issue. But the naming of both the products
> really represents the willingness to share the brand or not. A
> "MapServer Foundation" cannot equally represent both MapServer and
> MapGuide. The names are the brand. If a product can't use the name,
> then it isn't using the brand.
>
>
>
> Autodesk decided that it would rather take the harder road and work
> with an existing community, than go it alone and work against that
> community.
>
> And the MapServer stakeholders decided they would take the hard road
> and work with Autodesk to find a common path, rather then compete
> head-to-head.
>
>
>
> Then the story broke, and the MapServer community had the reaction
> we all saw to the name. The general reaction to the announcement
> outside of the MapServer community has actually been quite positive.
>
>
>
> If a common name brand can't be used, then one alternative will be
> that MapServer is not going to be leading the startup of a
> foundation that can house both MapServer and Tux. As well, such a
> foundation can not be called the "MapServer Foundation" any more
> than it should be called the "MapGuide Foundation". In many ways,
> voting against sharing the name brand is actually voting against
> working with Autodesk on starting the MapServer Foundation.
> Autodesk will not be willing to put their investment into a
> foundation that hides their name brand under the name of another
> web-based mapping project. It has already invested a lot of money
> in promoting the "MapServer Foundation", which no one else has ever
> done.
>
>
>
> So this was the thinking and these are the choices. We didn't do
> it all perfectly and not having broader community input was a real
> problem. I wish that we could have put the following question out
> there for community feedback from the very start.
>
>
>
> Here is the poll question, please cast your vote and comment on the
> poll online at:
>
>
>
> http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/polls/ms_autodesk
>
>
>
> -------------
>
>
>
> What serves the MapServer Community best?
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Gary Lang
>
> Tyler Mitchell
>
>
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|Paul Spencer pspencer at dmsolutions.ca |
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