current OS license and the Source that lies ahead

[Attila Csipa]

On Tuesday 29 November 2005 23:22, you wrote:
> The concern here seems to be about Autodesk creating a fork.
> people in charge of MapServer today are the same people that were in
> charge a week ago. The license is the license. We will be minority
> voters on the board of the foundation. Where is the concern coming from?

The concern is that the whole think took the community by surprise. Don't get 
me wrong, I don't see anything wrong or worse today than it was one week ago. 
I feel it's just the realization hitting the community that important 
decisions regarding MapServer can be brought without it's knowledge or 
(whatever that means) consent. The license as it is grants total freedom, 
including this one with the Foundation (and the one that would allow anybody 
to release a fork called Mapserver Platypus), and that's great. It's just 
that freedom sometimes takes getting used to, both from the side of the 
authors and contributors/end users.

PS. I never thought of Autodesk _creating_ a fork - after all you do have most 
major developers in the Foundation and whatever they do will be considered 
the 'real' MapServer by the community. I was thinking more along the lines of 
a (perhaps inadvertent) possibility of _causing_ a fork on the long run.