[OpenLayers-Users] Future of OpenLayers or OL3

[Sergeant_york]

Hello there, 

I want to share my ideas and hesitations about GIS technologies and
OpenLayers.

Firstly, when I heard OL3 will use webGL I was so happy... Until I read
about microsoft's policy about webGL. Probably with fear of competition they
are completely thinking that webGL has security issues. That leaves
Silverlight for map applications if you want to use computer's hardware
totally. Unfortunately Silverlight doesn't have solutions as much as
OpenLayers has. Technology is not the same as 1 sec ago and Microsoft
follows the technology a bit slow. 

Secondly, in my opinion OpenLayers is the strongest tool for using gis
applications. Everytime when I face with a problem, maybe as a habit, I say
"I am sure OpenLayers has a solution for this problem" then I find it in api
reference. So it is not easy to stop using OpenLayers for web based
applications.

On the other hand, eventhough Openlayers has good solutions and applies
standarts pretty well, with extreme problems it may have performance issues.
Actually, it is not OpenLayer's but web browser's performance issues.
Because of limitations to use computer hardware in web applications cannot
show than x amount of features or cannot show more than y layers together.

Let's get back to 1st paragraph. OL3 uses webGL, I loved this. But still,
unfortunately, high amount of the customers are still use "internet
explorer". Because when a person is old, it is not easy to change their
habits to make them use another browser that will accept webgl, and when a
person is old, most likely they have money to support your projects. 

Also, with same performance reasons, it is not easy to apply complex jobs in
applications. Technology is improving but when we are looking at OL geometry
editing tools, they cannot serve a good solution for users who want to edit
geometries. 

So, I think it is a good idea to implement webGL technologies but it is not
a %100 solution for gis applications. That's why I am looking forward for
OL3 to has better performance without using webGL too. 

What are your ideas for future of mainly OL and also other GIS clientside
tools?



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