epiphany about the idea of the Foundation

[Daniel Morissette]

Fawcett, David wrote:
> 
> As new companies join the foundation, will we get MapServerIMS,
> MapServerIMS Enterprise, MapServerGeomedia, MapServerMS,
> MapServerMapXtreme, MapServerStreetAtlas?  What is left of the MapServer
> brand then?  
> 

I have to admit that, like many others on this list, I'm not too 
comfortable with the "MapServer Enterprise" name, I don't remember, but 
I may have been the one who threw out that name the first time, but 
anyway all along I have been hoping that Autodesk could get a better 
name for their product that would not imply that it's something superior 
to the other projects in the family. However a Frank pointed out, it 
made sense for each project to be allowed to pick its own name so the 
name stayed.

Now, about the sharing of the MapServer name by multiple projects, I 
don't see the problem, I see them as the "Family of MapServer Web 
Mapping Products". I don't think we are likely to get as many names as 
you suggest above as part of the foundation, not in the short term 
anyway... but if that happened, this could either be seen as brand 
dilution (as you suggest), or as a tremendous success (my take)... this 
would mean that all those companies endorsed the open source model and 
are telling us that what we were right all along. Keep in mind that we 
are talking about an open source software foundation so the foundation 
wouldn't let anyone use its name (MapServer) without showing some 
commitment to the open source model, and to the values of the MapServer 
community.

Finally, this has been pointed out before, but once again, if you visit 
http://apache.org/, most (all?) the projects use Apache in their name:
Apache HTTP Server Project, Apache Ant, Apache Portable Runtime (APR), 
Apache Beehive, Apache Cocoon and so on... and that doesn't seem to be a 
problem for them.

Note that none of them is called Apache Enterprise... I still hope we 
can fix that.


> In your alternative scenario, you say that we would have woken up to a
> competitor.  At least that competitor wouldn't have walked away with the
> brand.
> 
> I also don't think that labeling feedback from the MapServer Community
> as 'mostly FUD' really demonstrates your willingness to 'learn from the
> community'.
> 

Well, I would dare to consider myself part of the community, I believe 
that many of the concerns raised today are legit and I want to work with 
everyone to address them. However I also believe that some of what has 
been raised today is FUD in reaction to the unknown situation in which 
we are getting into.

Daniel
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  Daniel Morissette               dmorissette at dmsolutions.ca
  DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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