[webmap-discuss] Roll Call

[John R. Frank]

> > Wecome to the webmap-discuss list.  Let's kick off with a role call.
> > Introduce yourself and what project(s) you represent.


Hey folks, I'm John Frank.  I founded MetaCarta several years ago.  We
make natural language georeferencing engines.  We sell primarily to
enterprises.  To take full advantage of the georeferenced documents that
our systems produce, we also sell a complete soup-to-nuts text search
appliance that includes the UMN MapServer and is beginning to include
elements of the OpenLayers javascript that Schuyler mentioned.

As Schuyler said, OpenLayers is not done.  It's actually in its third
ground up rewrite, and we're still learning how to make it practical.  We
want to build great GUIs for exploring unstructured documents in
conjunction with maps.  These particular uses overlap with several basic
uses of maps on the Web, so we would like to base them on a totally open
source library of AJAX GIS parts.  All the alternatives, including
OpenLayers, still have shortcomings.  Hopefully discussions on this list
can figure out how best to address them.  While a diversity of tools is
good, we will all benefit from figuring out how to share pieces.

The details of our current thinking will be more visible when we release
the new version of OpenLayers.


For the record, my personal interests in mapping involve ecology, racing
alternative vehicles, and community building.


John




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________________________________________
John R. Frank <john.frank at metacarta.com>
Founder and CTO
MetaCarta, Inc.