[mapserver-users] help with converting Geoserver site to Mapserver

[Rahkonen Jukka]

Hi,

You should know by now that it is possible and easy to make a MapServer WMS service to deliver the same data that is now behind GeoServer WMS.  That is for sure true.  What I do not understand is why your organization thinks it is necessary.  If your application is using just GeoServer WMS interface no part or your own code will be contaminated by GPL. But it will be a refreshing experience to study a bit how a similar result is achieved either with MapServer or Geoserver.

-Jukka Rahkonen-


-----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
Lähettäjä: mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org puolesta: Justin Bailey
Lähetetty: ti 9.12.2008 19:03
Vastaanottaja: mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org
Aihe: [mapserver-users] help with converting Geoserver site to Mapserver
 
Hi list,

I hope I can get some assistance on a matter of some urgency.  Our organization has been putting the finishing touches on an application that is supposed to be released by the end of the year.  Unexpectedly, it did not pass license review, because it used Geoserver, which is GPL-licensed.  Since Mapserver has a more permissive license, and is also WMS-compatible, the decision was made to switch to Mapserver.  It now falls to me, as the junior developer, to do a last-minute switchover.  Unfortunately I come to this task knowing nothing about either Geoserver *or* Mapserver.

After some difficulty I succeeded in getting Mapserver running on our existing Tomcat server, but I have not been able to figure out how to convert the Geoserver data.  I have made some encouraging steps on the Mapserver tutorial but I still know nothing about Geoserver, and I am running out of time.  I need to solve this problem by the end of this week if possible, or by the end of next week at the absolute latest.


So, I have two questions:

1) Is there a utility I could download that can convert a Geoserver installation to Mapserver?

-- or --

2) I *think* (crossing fingers) that the only thing I need to do, on the application side, is to convert the following Javascript call...

var wms = new OpenLayers.Layer.WMS("World", "geoserver/wms?service=wms", {layers: 'countries', bgcolor: 0x000055});

...into its equivalent Mapserver call.  There are four countries.* files in the geoserver repository:

countries.dbf
countries.prj
countries.shp
countries.shx

How do I create countries.map to serve these files, and what mapserv.exe call should I use?


Many thanks for any and all assistance.

Justin