By Randall S. Newton
Autodesk has released the source code for its web mapping product MapServer Enterprise as open source. A snapshot of the code is available through the new MapServer Foundation, an independent non-profit organization with the mission of supporting and promoting open source web mapping. The foundation’s charter members include MapServer Technical Steering Committee members, the University of Minnesota MapServer Project, the DM Solutions Group, and Autodesk.
The geospatial software environment has an active and vital open source community, unlike the other industries in which Autodesk operates. One active member of that community, Ed McNierney, president of TopoZone.com, complained in a public letter that the launch of the MapServer Foundation was a closed-door, invitation-only affair that didn’t do the justice to the application or the geospatial community. “The MapServer community really needs a Foundation to support it and to keep the product healthy and growing,” he wrote. “There are many examples of the creation of such consortia to draw from, both inside of and outside of the Open Source community. It doesn't appear those examples were considered. We really need a MapServer Foundation—I'm not at all sure that we need this one.”
“The decision to contribute to the open source community is a reflection of our customers’ desire for faster innovation, more frequent product releases, and lower total cost of ownership,” said Chris Bradshaw, vice president of Autodesk’s Infrastructure Solutions Division, in announcing the release. “Autodesk is committed to ensuring open source web mapping technology continues to gain adoption, evolve and add value to the growing geospatial community and marketplace.”
According to Autodesk, MapServer Enterprise is designed to allow developers to rapidly create and deploy spatial applications. It works with PHP, .NET, and Java tools to create applications for both Windows and Linux server environments. Developers can also publish spatial views internally, over the web, or using Autodesk’s DWF viewing technology for offline portability. Autodesk plans to offer a commercial version of the product called Autodesk MapServer Enterprise in 2006, as well as an authoring environment which handles geospatial data collection and preparation of the data for distribution via the Internet.
MapServer Enterprise is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). In addition to the snapshot of the source code available today, the company expects the full MapServer Enterprise open source project web site to be live in early 2006. The project site will support code contributions, as well as bug submissions, mailing lists and discussion forums. As a component of MapServer Enterprise, Autodesk will also make available source code for its feature data objects (FDOs) technology which provides a powerful application programming interface for accessing any type of spatial information. Autodesk will contribute nearly a dozen FDO “providers” to the open source project including ArcSDE, WFS, WMS, SHP, ODBC, and MySQL.
"Autodesk's entry into open source validates the work done by the MapServer community, and indeed by all of the folks working on open source geospatial projects. It is clear that open source plays a significant role in the geospatial technology market,” said Steve Lime, creator of MapServer and chair of the MapServer Technical Steering Committee. “The MapServer Foundation is a logical next step for MapServer, and I look forward to seeing the community grow."
The MapServer Foundation’s site also features the original MapServer platform, a leading open source web mapping platform with more than 10,000 downloads a month. Moving forward MapServer will be called MapServer Cheetah in order to differentiate it from MapServer Enterprise.
DM Solutions Group, the commercial leader of MapServer development, participated in the release. "Today's announcement is a milestone event for the open source web mapping community and the broader geospatial industry," said David McIlhagga, president of DM Solutions Group. "The spirit of collaboration being demonstrated today is sure to bring major benefits to users, organizations and companies contributing to and building on open source around the world."