epiphany about the idea of the Foundation

[P Kishor]

Kralidis,Tom [Burlington] wrote:
>> " You are missing the point that the creation of a MapServer
>> Foundation in no way required the contribution of any code
>> from Autodesk."
>>
>
> Maybe the two actions together are the bane here.  What if the MapServer
> Foundation was established independent of the gracious Autodesk
> contribution?  The naming / optics of the Autodesk contribution didn't
> help, either.
>


Tom's idea is a great base to start the reasoning. Take Autodesk away
from the equation, and the foundation is still a great idea, and the
foundation should still have been created. There is no connection
between the two.

Gary (of Autodesk) several times indicated that the option in front of
the group was to either embrace each other or to compete. That, in my
view, is a bogus argument, because it is speculative. As it is,
Autodesk was already competing with MapServer. But more than
MapServer, Autodesk was competing with you-know-who. Many feel that
perhaps Autodesk embraced MapServer because its Mapguide product was
not able to compete with Darkims. Fact is, the real competitor in the
GIS/web mapping space is only one software. But, even that is not the
reason for free software. Software should be free because knowledge
should be free, not because it has to compete with anything.

Parties join open source for many reasons, and while mine may be the
high road, I am not going to turn anyone away. No matter why you join,
you are are joining a good cause. And, yes, you should have the
freedom to make money from it, if that is what you want (I am more
toward the Stallmanian thought here than the OSI school). Until now
the conventional wisdom was that capitalist ideas could not co-exist
with open source. Both IBM, Red Hat, and more than any, Apple, have
proved that wrong. And, how well they have done. There is no "Darwin
Cheetah" and "Darwin Enterprise." Darwin and Mac OS X are two very
different products. No conflict. So, please don't spread FUD. And
definitely, don't spread FUD by saying that others spread FUD.

Someone indicated that Ed McNierny was spreading FUD. That was a
hurtful thing to say, and was FUD in itself. Ed was probably speaking
from the point-of-view of a small-biz owner, and saw a lost
opportunity. But, so what? He at least made us all stop and think. I
think he wrote a very well reasoned letter. Ed has as much right to
being a founding member (if he sees mileage in that) as DMS has. Ed
has spent countless hours helping others on the list, popularizing and
raising the profile of MapServer, and demonstrating that it is a
solution capable of running a high-traffic business. DM Solutions (God
bless them, but I would say this even if I were their employee) is a
for-profit company, and Ed has a right to feel that he should share
the stage with them, or at the very least, be given a chance to share
the stage.

Autodesk went to DMS because they had Tydac colleagues in common. That
was fine. Two for-profit companies decided to join forces. Great, but
remember, other for-profit companies might also want to do the same,
especially if you are joining forces around a product that belongs to
many others. At that point, the process should have been made public.

Autodesk had every right to ask for NDA, but the mapserver community
had every right to refuse that NDA. That is what should have been
done. Ok. It is done now. MTSC (took me a while to figure out what the
heck that acronym meant) screwed up, in my view. But, those who
breaketh also repaireth. What now?

Let's quit the bickering (for the nth time) and focus on the facts --

Repeat after me.

The Foundation is a great idea. Let's nurture it and make it grow.
Letting Autodesk rename their product "Mapserver Enterprise" is a
terrible idea...   not so much because Autodesk gets a much prized
moniker but because it detracts from my beloved MapServer. I would
never be able to promote "MapServer <insert qualifier>" because the
bosses-in-pointy-hats will ask for the enterprise class product, even
if they don't know their arse from an enterprise.

Autodesk, Gary, welcome to the family. Now, rename your product to
anything in the world, just not MapServer, contribute your code, don't
ask for anything in return, and you will get back more than you and
Autodesk ever imagined.

And, fer crying out loud, don't tell us that you have two person years
worth of investment in that code. I have no idea how much of his life
Steve Lime has invested, and that guy has never asked for anything
other than perhaps the pleasure of seeing his idea take root and
flourish. And, I can't even begin to monetize the collective hours
that the community has put into the software.