Autodesk and MapServer

It's a bit over the top to write:

Today, this week, we are simply adjusting to a space/time warp in the continuum of our geospatial marketplace. Processes, products and relationships are all changing in ways with which none of us have experience.

but this is certainly the beginning of an interesting experiment.

Comments

Re: Autodesk and MapServer

Author: Mark

While I sort of understand using "MapServer" as part of the foundation name I was quite surprised about "MapServer Enterprise"! Talk about re-branding! I would point out that Apache http server 2.x is built upon the Apache http server 1.3 - a user upgrading to the newer series version would discover that many of the configuration directives have not changed although there are certainly differences including new and improved capabilities. In effect, version 2.0 was a major re-write of the code base but still incorporating many of the features of the 1.3 version. "Mapserver Enterprise" and "Mapserver classic/cheetah/whatever" are completely different software products - and pedigree. Sort of like Sun labeling all of their software products "Java" because the brand name was recognizable even though they often didn't involve the Java programming language in any way. Marketing and Sales people are always obsessed with branding issues - I am not so sure that open source projects should be quite so obsessed. While important, a project name/logo/symbol is really just a way to unify and identify a community around a particular project. And don't forget - it is ultimately all about the communities. Note that while the Apache Foundation's name is derived from its original web server software, all subsequent projects have different names ("Tomcat", "Geronimo", "Gump", etc) - only the original http server still goes solely by the name "Apache", and it is now a relatively less active project. My understanding is that the various Apache projects get to decide upon their own name when they start up. If another geospatial company donates code to the MapServer Foundation, can they call it "Mapserver Galactic Enterprise 2.0" or is that only a benefit of being an original founder ;-)