MapServer Foundation thoughts and reactions

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

I would like to appologise for not being around on announcement
day.  It had been my intent to participate more immediately in
discussions.

First, Ed, I completely agree with you about the poisonious
nature of closed discussions by a "cabal" about establishing
the foundation.   I know that several of us found this especially
distasteful.  Yet, we were basically in the position of doing something
or doing nothing.  After some introspection, I thought doing something
was better.  However, we have actively pushed to keep the nature
of the foundation open past the announcement so that it could really
be established by the community.

Nevertheless, your point about Autodesk (and to some degree DMSG)
getting the initial PR splash is quite true.  But the PR splash was
really more about Autodesk open sourcing a product.  The formation
of the foundation was secondary.  No matter how things were structured
the big story in the press would still have been about Autodesk.

I'm somewhat conflicted on the "MapServer Enterprise" name.  On
the one hand, it does seem to give that product the most professional
mantle.  To some extent they deserve that.  They have built in alot of
"enterprise class" features that I find scary and heavy.  On the other
hand, it is unproven, especially in "enterprise level workloads" that we
know MapServer Cheetah can handle well (with appropriate care).

Ultimately my position was that I wouldn't stand for them dictating the
name of "my" product, so it was unfair for me to dictate theirs.  I would
add, I wouldn't even want our product to be called "MapServer Enterprise".

BTW, I see "MapServer Cheetah" as meaning fast and lean, compared
to the complicated and heavy sense I get from "MapServer Enterprise",
but I can certainly see why the "enterprise class" version is going to
seem like the obvious safe choice for lots of folks.  But really, if their
needs analysis goes as deep as a name, they have issues.

On 11/29/05, David Bitner <osgis.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> Has there been any discussion about governance for the new Masperver
> Foundation?

David,

There has been relatively little discussions of the governance model
of the foundation because I (and others) wanted that established in
the open.

> My impression (and hope) is that the signatories have at
> least discussed this somewhat.  I would like to see something come
> about that made sure to include a wide breadth of the Mapserver
> Community.  The signatories were primarily made up of core developers.
>  I would like to see the Foundation involve the following.
>
> 1. Core application developers
> 2. Core organized client application developers (ie ka-map, mapbuilder, etc)
> 3. Service Providers (individual consultants, DM, Refractions, Autodesk etc)
> 4. Users (individuals, user groups, universities, government agencies)

I would like to strongly state that I do not see the foundation being
dominated by the development folks, or organizations.  I think it is
very important that the foundation be dominated by all sorts of people
and organizations using MapServer.  Certainly all of those you identify
above. In fact, I think feel strongly that anyone who self-identifies as
having an interest in mapserver should be able to be a member of the
foundation and have their say (and vote).

> Another question, will the board be subject to elections from the
> community as a whole?

My hope is that self-identified interested parties can join the foundation
as members, and that the board will be elected by those members.
Furthermore, I think the basic membership level for voting purposes
should have at best a nominal membership fee.  Perhaps $10USD/yr.
It could even be free, though I think the paperwork of sending in a
small payment would at least week out those with exceptionally
little interest.

Best regards,
--
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent