MS Foundation web presence question

[Paul Spencer]

Charlton,

The MapServer Enterprise download is provided by Autodesk and was  
previously known as Tux.  MSE comprises two parts:

* MSE server - this is a long running server process.  There is one  
*site* server and zero or more support servers.  The server stores  
configuration files (in XML!!!) and has all the logic to turn  
requests into maps etc.

* MSE WebExtensions - this is the web part of the server and is  
designed to be deployed in front of a corporate firewall etc.  It  
exposes http access to the site server (and support servers) and has  
a scripting interface in either PHP, Java or .NET ...

MapServer Studio is a desktop app that provides a way to configure  
the MSE server via the WebExtensions tier.  I believe the plan is for  
Autodesk to keep this as a proprietary/commercial product because it  
embeds AutoCAD binaries that are not being considered for open source  
release.  It is also bound to Windows only.

MapServer Studio will only work with MSE.

I believe there is an intention to develop a web-based open source  
tool with similar capabilities as Studio (or at least the  
capabilities necessary to configure the server with data and style  
it), and probably also some command line tools for loading data into  
the server and possibly moving MAP files to/from the MSE environment  
(they have a different set of features for styling/labeling that  
could make this tricky, but it should be possible to have a  
rudimentary import/export).

Cheers

Paul

On 29-Nov-05, at 9:07 AM, Charlton Purvis wrote:

> Hi, folks:
>
> I have been paying attention to the spirited dialog re. yesterday's
> announcement.  But I may have missed something along the way, and I  
> have
> just taken my first look at the .org site.  If the Foundation is  
> still in
> its early stages, who has been working to release what I see here?
> http://www.mapserverfoundation.org/mapserver_enterprise/ 
> download.html  And
> for how long?
>
> I'm still downloading the whopping 125MB demo from here
> http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item? 
> siteID=123112&id=6153839.  Long
> gone are small installs.  That site refers to that d/l as AutodeskR
> MapServer Studio - Preview, and it's terribly confusing how that  
> relates to
> what we're calling Cheetah or Enterprise.  That is, if it is  
> supposed to
> relate at all.
>
> And not to belabor the point, the .org website appears to leave  
> little doubt
> that there are 2 separate beasts (Cheetah and Enterprise) that  
> already have
> names.
>
> Charlton

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|Paul Spencer                           pspencer at dmsolutions.ca   |
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|Applications & Software Development                              |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/|
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