Autodesk Open-Sources Web Mapping Software
Autodesk Inc. is planning early next year to release to the open source community, the full code of their MapServer Enterprise product, which is part of Autodesk’s new Web mapping platform .
We are delighted to announce the creation of the MapServer Foundation (mapserverfoundation.org). The foundation is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide a supportive framework for open, collaborative development of geospatial software. Several groups and individuals are collaborating to help launch and sponsor the new foundation. Financial support from Autodesk will allow us to get the foundation up and running. In this letter, we present some ideas of how we think the foundation can help the community, but these ideas need broader discussion and debate within the community.
I think it’s great to see Autodesk releasing a product of this calaber to the open source community. The original version of this product has been around since the 1997 and sees about 10,000 downloads a month.
Stay tuned for more news…