MapServer and Foundation naming

[P Kishor]

Daniel Morissette wrote:
> P Kishor wrote:
>>
>> It is still not clear what exactly will Autodesk's codebase contribute
>> to the MapServer codebase, if anything at all. Will it, won't it? Will
>> it forever be a separate but equal product? Why does it even need the
>> MapServer foundation?
>>
>
> I have tried to explain the positioning of each project/product and of
> the foundation in the following email, that should address many of hte
> questions:
>
> http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-November/000017.html
>

Merci, Daniel. I signed up for that list as well, but I am sure I am
not getting any emails from there. The lists have been "Forked"! ;-)
Obviously, audience on both lists is concerned with the same issues. I
guess I should re-subscribe to that one as well.

>
> P.S. Please don't jump on the online forum vs mailing list question at
> the beginning of the email, we've beaten this one to death before and we
> already know our respective positions on that.  :)

good to see that issue still lives. Somethings will never go away. ;-)



> My understanding is that MS Enterprise, as its name says, is more
> focused on enterprise class of systems for large organizations, backed
> by corporate spatial databases (think Oracle), doing GIS analysis over
> the web, fine-grained data access control, etc.

This is where I have a problem. First, as you say above, it all sounds
speculative. We have no idea that the software that came to be MSE was
more focused on enterprises... you didn't have any idea, that is why
you use the term "My understanding is..." Autodesk came in with the
suggestion that their software focused on enterprises while our
application was some mickey-mouse app (well, I don't mean to sound
pejorative, but I am just trying to make a point). I still don't
understand why no one is talking about MapServer + PostGIS. That is
about as enterprise as one's gonna get.

> I think it's clear that the Enterprise bit hurts. But how do we move
> forward? I still think that sharing the MapServer name sounds like a
> good idea.
>
> 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?
>
>

Overall the idea is fine, but there are a couple of problems. One,
Firefox and Thunderbird do completely different things. One can never
replace the other. In this case, MSE can replace (or be replaced by)
MSC. The other issue is the MapServer name mileage. It would be silly
to call our product "MapServer MapServer," and their product
"MapServer MapGuide" (besides, it has echoes of ArcGIS ArcIMS, etc.)

The key will be to come up with a name for the foundation, and then,
names for the other applications.

A lot of us, myself included, feel that MapServer should remain
"MapServer." The foundation can be "MapServer Foundation," or any one
of the other names that the list is coming up with. Autodesk's
technology, once it is clear as to where it fits, can then find a new
name -- one choice could be "Spatial Application Server." It should
also be clear why one would want one over the other.

Here is another idea -- maybe we could all get subsumed under OGIS,
and become one of their projects.

As I've said before -- I really do welcome the idea of Autodesk (and
others) joining the community. I just don't want to give away the
MapServer name.

We've got our work cut out for us.