[webmap-discuss] Re: Mapbuilder is ready for OSGeo Graduation - and project merging

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 07:41:57AM +1000, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Steve Lime wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> >One question in my mind is what all the talk of project merging 
> >(OpenLayers, ka-map,
> >MapBuilder and so on) really means. Is there a chance that in the near 
> >future there really will be a single project comprised of the best of all 
> >of the participating client
> >environments, and if so then how should that be taken into account as part 
> >of incubation. Do we graduate a project that may substantial change near 
> >term? If
> >projects do merge and one is "officially OSGeo" is the merged project now 
> >official?
> >
> >I know you've started those discussions but it's not clear where they sit.
> 
> Steve,
> Mapbuilder are likely to start using OpenLayers as a rendering engine, 
> which will effectively mean Mapbuilder would be using OpenLayers as a 
> library.  So technically, we would be able to be an OSGeo member without 
> bringing OpenLayers in as an OSGeo member.

I think that this will be the ideal situation for Mapbuilder and for
OpenLayers in this situation -- Any changes to move towards further
integration with OpenLayers will be in the form of using OpenLayers as a
library while still having Mapbuilder as a  seperately developed
project.

This may be the case for more tools which currently use a self-spanwed
map rendering engine: the core application would stay the same, but
OpenLayers would act as a renderer for the image data delivered from the
server.

Given this, I do not think that there is any concern with MapBuilder no
longer be a viable project within OSGeo: Mapbuilder has, and will
continue to, act as an application framework around a map renderer. It's
simply possible that OpenLayers will take over the 'map renderer' aspect
of MapBuilder at some point in the future.

-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer