MapServer and Foundation naming

[Homme Zwaagstra]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2005 at 02:13:13PM -0500, Kralidis,Tom [Burlington] wrote:
> >Let's say we get them to change Enterprise to something else, i.e. 
> >"MapServer <some_animal>" and "MapServer Cheetah" (change the animal 
> >names to anything as long as it's nice distinctive names)... the idea I
> 
> >think is to have something similar to Mozilla Firefox vs Mozilla 
> >Thunderbird, do you (not just you, but the community as a whole) still 
> >see a problem with something like that?
> 
> Right, but Mozilla is still called Mozilla.  <rant>Call anything other
> than MapServer whatever you want, but keep MapServer named MapServer
> </rant>

I agree that MapServer should keep it's name; there's no need to
confuse the issue by using the same (MapServer) moniker for separate
products that don't share a common heritage.  

Importantly, this extends to the foundation name as well; I believe a
neutral name that can act as an umbrella for related projects would be
much more beneficial than the current title.  As well as conforming to
the Apache/Mozilla model that is so successful it would solve our
current naming dilemma. Products could be called <Apache> Mapserver,
<Apache> MapGuide, <Apache> GDAL, <Apache> PostGIS etc (substitute
<Apache> for the umbrella name). I can't really see the name MapServer
PostGIS working, however natural a bedfellow software like PostGIS
might be.

Being able to go to www.apache.org or www.mozilla.org and know you're
at the home of a great family of related software is a valuable
thing. The new foundation can be that place for open source online
(and perhaps desktop) GIS, but only with the right name. I feel a name
with a broad, product neutral geospatial connection would be the right
way to go. I notice that www.atlas.org isn't currently taken ;)

Apologies if I'm not treading new ground here.

Kind regards,

Homme Zwaagstra