Mapserver acceptance as open source

[Ken Lord]

Hi John,

I have had the same problem, where a significant client has required a
mapserver site we set up as a prototype rebuilt in ArcIMS for
migration to their servers ... purely for beaureacratic reasons.

The prototype was created at significant cost to them, they understood
we were going to use MapServer, and they now must pay to port it to
ArcIMS, including the cost of Oracle, to replace PostGIS.

So my advice is, if they don't like MapServer, show them how much more
it is going to cost them to move to closed-source.  If they don't care
about the cost, they can spend the money for you to make what they
want.  The most important thing is what keeps You in business.

On a completly different topic:

I spent a couple weeks trying to get ESRI to tell me if ArcIMS 9.2
would truly support cascading WMS, in the sense that MapServer does,
meaning that it could take a WMS source and reproject it into the
projection of your map even if the WMS does not supply the map in your
projection.

They told me several times that not only does 9.2 support this, but
that 9.1 also does ... This is of course not true. Anyone who has
tried to use the wonderful NASA / JPL Landsat layers in a UTM map (the
LandSat is available only in WGS84) knows this to be the case. It
requires MapServer or similar to cascade it into the projection you
need.

ArcGIS Desktop 9.2 does actually support true cascading WMS, and
ArcIMS is supposed to replicate all of Desktop's functionality.

They finally admitted to me that despite their advertising of it,
true cascading WMS support was not an intended feature of ArcIMS 9.2,
and that this violates thier plan of matching ArcIMS functionality
with ArcGIS Desktop. They have filed this as a bug and feature
request.

Supposedly ArcIMS 9.2 will get this functionality in a future service pack.

Cheers,
Ken Lord
Vancouver BC



On 1/7/07, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
> John Mitchell wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am getting concerned that Mapserver will not be accepted by one of our
> > clients because its open source.  Has anyone else ever have a similar
> > problem?  Does anyone have any advice?
>
> John,
>
> Like many of the other folks who responded, I think it is hard to
> offer much advice without particulars of why the client is concerned.
>
> One goal of OSGeo is to overcome some concerns with regard to open source.
> For instance, we vette the code to ensure that there aren't "intellectual
> property" landmines in the future, and we try to build a governance structure
> around projects to provide assurance they are well managed and will last for
> the long haul.
>
> I would be quite interested in hearing what the clients concerns are, and
> if there are things that OSGeo can or should be doing to address the
> concerns.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org
>


-- 
==============================
Ken Lord B.Sc., A.Dipl.T.H.
7488 Magnolia Terrace
Burnaby BC, V5E 4L1
604-777-2171
kenlord at gmail.com
klord at bgcengineering.com