[Live-demo] Retire MapTiler from OSGeo-Live

Sat Feb 7 14:30:36 PST 2015

Hi everybody,

Let me clarify the situation:

- The original MapTiler (python + wxWidgets) is discontinued and
unfortunately it failed as an open-source project in my eyes. The software
attracted quite a lot of end users, but no 3rd party developers. There was
not a single commit from any third-party ever to the MapTiler project code
itself, probably because the graphical utility was used mostly by
non-programmers. The otherwise great project stalled for some time. I have
not seen how to move it forward without any financial support, while not
being a student anymore - and it made me really sad.

- Since 2011, I work with my team on a completely new implementation of an
efficient tiling utility, the new MapTiler usable both from the
command-line as well as from the graphical user interface, written in C++
and QT. It is significantly faster, merges multiple files in different srs,
handles correctly dateline crossing and world maps, tiles in non-mercator
grids, it directly produces small and optimized jpg and pngs, it is
compatible with OGC WMTS, contains uploader to Amazon S3 and Google Cloud
Storage, supports different layers on different zoom levels (see
http://goo.gl/TCrGtQ and other tutorials), and it comes with many other new
features, with installers, regular updates, support and maintenance. It
runs on Win/Lin/Mac - see http://www.maptiler.com/ for more information.
With my colleagues we are trying to do our job as good as we can.
It is a complete rewrite of the original utility, fixing design flaws and
implementation issues of both GDAL2Tiles and original MapTiler. To be able
to support the utility and to work on new features we ask for a license fee.

- There was no financial support from Google Summer of Code nor from OSGeo
on the original MapTiler.

-  Both my Google SoC in 2007 and 2008 were on the GDAL2TIles command-line
utility, lead by Howard.
My original GDAL2Tiles from 2007 is available at
http://www.klokan.cz/projects/gdal2tiles/ and the version from 2008 is
distributed together with GDAL library, with patches and some fixes, mostly
from Evan.
As Even pointed out - I started to work on the MapTiler during August 2008,
after the second SoC. BRGM mentioned in the code of GDAL2Tiles.py supported
improvements of GDAL2Tiles, not MapTiler project.

- As the sole author of MapTiler and the owner of the MapTiler trademark I
would like to request complete removal of the MapTiler from the OSGeo
LiveDVD. I have prepared the existing .deb package as well as supplied the
quickstart and installation scripts to the svn about 5 years back.

- If anybody is interested to revive my original open-source project
published under an open-source license, he is welcomed to do that - under
the conditions of the original license, while preserving the original
copyright notice, and under the condition his fork of the project is not
anymore called MapTiler and does not use original graphical elements and
desktop icon of the original application.

- The existence of the two projects of the same name is confusing the
people and I want to avoid it. I hope you respect my decision. The old
MapTiler is dead, long live the MapTiler! ;-)

- I continue to work on several other open-source projects and with my team
I keep developing, contributing and improving on OL3Cesium, OpenLayers V3,
WebGL Earth, EPSG.io, IIPImage, GDAL and other projects. See our github and
blog for details: http://www.klokantech.com/.
Open-source is indeed very powerful and viable on components and I can't
imagine to live without it. Still, there are situations, where it is simply
not applicable.

I am proud to be part of OSGeo and I am keen to continue to contribute to
the community in future. I admire and honor people like Frank or Evan and
others. You have my true respect for what you do and what you have achieved!

Best regards,

Petr Pridal, Ph.D.
Klokan Technologies GmbH

P.S.
If anybody is interested in even more background of the evolution of
MapTiler you can read:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maptiler/r9Xa8S_S4Z8/7pJoqKR1MM0J

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 9:24 PM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've had a request from the MapTiler project to have it removed from
> OSGeo-Live.
>
> I've raised a ticket:
> https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1467
>
> I'll look after updating the docs.
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>
> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>
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>

-- 
http://blog.klokan.cz/
http://www.maptiler.org/
http://www.oldmapsonline.org/
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