MapServer Foundation - Open Letter

[Emil Zegers]

Congratulations all with this remarkable step ahead.

Looks like MapServer is getting even more mature very quick.

Also looking forward to see proposals for the new logo :-)

Regards,

Emil Zegers


----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: Steve Lime <steve.lime at DNR.STATE.MN.US>
Datum: maandag, november 28, 2005 2:37 pm
Onderwerp: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] MapServer Foundation - Open Letter

> An Open Letter to the MapServer Open Source Web Mapping Community
> 
> November 28, 2005
> 
> Greetings MapServer community,
> 
> We are pleased to share with you some exciting news about the 
> future of open source web mapping.
> 
> Over the past few years MapServer adoption has grown ten-fold and 
> has become the web mapping platform of choice for many businesses, 
> government agencies, nonprofit groups and individuals. The 
> MapServer developers have added powerful new features. The 
> community has enjoyed three incredible conferences and continues 
> to support each other and enhance the community.
> 
> We want to ensure that this success and momentum continues for the 
> MapServer product and community. MapServer continues to run well 
> in diverse environments and its rich set of features play an 
> indispensable role in many organizations. More than ever, we are 
> committed to improving MapServer and providing exceptional value 
> to the community.
> 
> To this end, we take this opportunity to share two bits of news: 
> the creation of the MapServer Foundation and welcoming the 
> addition of Autodesk's next-generation web mapping platform 
> (previously known as Tux) as open source into the foundation.
> 
> MapServer Foundation
> 
> We are delighted to announce the creation of the MapServer 
> Foundation (mapserverfoundation.org). The foundation is a 
> nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide a supportive 
> framework for open, collaborative development of geospatial 
> software. Several groups and individuals are collaborating to help 
> launch and sponsor the new foundation. Financial support from 
> Autodesk will allow us to get the foundation up and running. In 
> this letter, we present some ideas of how we think the foundation 
> can help the community, but these ideas need broader discussion 
> and debate within the community.
> 
> We looked to other successful open source movements, such as 
> Apache, to see how our community could benefit from the creation 
> of an independent foundation. It is clear that the time has come 
> to create a formal infrastructure to help further support and 
> promote the professional open source web mapping development 
> environments and communities. While initially focused on web 
> mapping projects, we hope the foundation will adopt other open 
> source geospatial projects that need a home.
> 
> Forming the foundation is only the beginning, as we now seek 
> community involvement and participation. The foundation will have 
> a governance model that allows it to be run by a Board of 
> Directors that represents the community. How it is ultimately 
> going to be run is up to the members of the community. The 
> foundation will also have a set of bylaws that provide structure 
> and can be amended through a community voting process.
> 
> Role of the foundation
> 
> The first priority for the foundation is to engage the broader 
> MapServer community. Members of the community are encouraged to 
> join and get involved. Consider this letter as your invitation to 
> participate. The community web site is the place where you, as a 
> user and participant in the community, can follow and contribute 
> to the development of the MapServer Foundation family of projects.
> 
> The primary responsibilities of the foundation may include:
> 
>    * Support code repository and other project infrastructure
>    * Formalized process for decision-making (e.g. where to host 
> the next conference)
>    * Legal protection for the source code and developers of the 
> software    * Paying for development work on minor improvements of 
> the platform
>    * Acting as a central repository for marketing, branding and 
> professional image development of the product
>    * Providing process for mitigating disputes
>    * Financial support for advocacy, sponsorship, community 
> events and conferences
> 
> Many of these community-related functions have been overseen in an 
> ad-hoc manner or deferred to the University of Minnesota or other 
> organizations in the past. The foundation will streamline the 
> coordination of legal, administrative and governance efforts.
> 
> As MapServer will now be officially managed by the foundation, it 
> no longer makes sense to call it UMN MapServer. Product branding 
> is also becoming more important and this is a good opportunity to 
> introduce a more visual name for the product. We propose calling 
> it MapServer Cheetah. This presents a fast and agile image that 
> suits the product well and will help differentiate it from other 
> MapServer products.
> 
> MapServer Cheetah & MapServer Enterprise
> 
> We are also very excited about Autodesk's decision to release 
> their next generation web mapping platform into the open source 
> community through the MapServer Foundation. This adds further 
> legitimacy to our open source development platform. Their product 
> will be named MapServer Enterprise and is the successor to 
> Autodesk MapGuide but built on an entirely new architecture.
> 
> MapServer Enterprise and MapServer Cheetah will be run as two 
> separate but parallel projects. There are no plans to merge them 
> into one but we aim to share technologies between the two projects 
> wherever possible. We also hope to provide utilities that allow 
> the community to easily use one or both platforms.
> 
> MapServer Enterprise will be licensed using the OSI-approved GNU 
> Lesser General Public License (LGPL). MapServer Cheetah will 
> continue to be licensed under an MIT-style open source license. 
> Autodesk is eager to participate in an open and transparent 
> development process driven by independent guidance from the 
> community. We encourage you to check out MapServer Enterprise, 
> which is available today on the community web site.
> 
> We are proud to be part of this community and we hope you will 
> join us in establishing the MapServer Foundation. For more 
> information on how to get involved, please visit the community 
> site at: mapserverfoundation.org and join the mailing list 
> discussions.
> Sincerely,
> 
> Steve Lime, Chair, MapServer Technical Steering Committee (MTSC)
> Yewondwossen Assefa, MTSC Member
> Howard Butler, MTSC Member
> Daniel Morissette, MTSC Member
> Perry Nacionales, MTSC Member
> Frank Warmerdam, MTSC Member
> Tom Burk, University of Minnesota
> David McIlhagga, DM Solutions Group
> Tyler Mitchell
> Claude Philipona, Camptocamp SA and FOSS4G 2006 organizing committee
> Gary Lang, Autodesk
>