Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It has been very touching to hear such sentiments.
pere roca wrote: > dear mapBuilder friends, > > just to say congratulations for the work developed till now in MapBuilder; > it has been a really good job and consider a pity you stop developping but > you know the reasons much better than me. > > maybe because it was my first big webgis project but I learned a lot with > it. I've to say it was hard to costumize your own tool because mapBuilder > uses a lot of different technologies (DOM, js, XSLT...) but after some time > learning it's great (the good documentation also helped a lot). > > cheers and thanks for all, > > Pere Roca > > biòleg i especialista GIS > visita EDIT mapviewer! (prototype) > http://edit.csic.es/edit_geo/prototype/edit.html > > Cameron Shorter wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> >> End of life for Community Mapbuilder >> We, the Mapbuilder Project Steering Committee, have agreed that the >> time has come for the Community >> Mapbuilder >> project to gracefully retire. We will release a final, stable 1.5 >> version of the software, and afterwards there are no planned >> enhancements to Mapbuilder. The web pages and code will be kept alive, >> a few bugs might be fixed and we will likely continue answering user >> queries, but we expect Mapbuilder will gradually fade away into >> history. >> Why? >> Mapbuilder is a stable, >> feature rich, standards compliant, fast, webmapping framework with a >> strong developer community. Why has it come to the end of its life? >> The >> browser based webmapping space has become crowded and other webmapping >> clients have increased in functionality and attractiveness to users. In >> particular, Openlayers is simpler to use, has attracted an increabibly >> strong developer community, has good quality control and development >> processes, and has developed most of the webmapping functionality >> previously only offered by Mapbuilder. Basically Openlayers is >> attacting the majority of the users and developers that previously >> would have used Mapbuilder. One day someone will write a compelling >> paper on the history of the two similar projects and analyse the key >> differences and decision points which led to one project out shining >> the other. >> But we are not crying >> Well, >> maybe we feel a twing of loss for the Mapbuilder project we started >> years ago, but in the bigger picture, we see the retiring of Mapbuilder >> as a good thing. It will allow the greater web mapping community to >> consolidate and rally around the remaining webmapping tools – in >> particular, around Openlayers. >> There has been significant >> collaboration between the Mapbuilder and Openlayers communities over >> the last couple of years. Mapbuilder has incorporated Openlayers as its >> rendering engine and fetures have been shared between projects. In many >> cases, developers from both projects worked together on the same >> codebase (in Openlayers), then ported up to Mapbuilder. This was a >> deliberate move toward the merging of the two developer communities and >> most of the Mapbuilder Project Steering Committee have contributed to >> the Openlayers codebase. >> So in essence, by changing our >> allegience from Mapbuilder to Openlayers we take with us some of our >> code, we replace some features with equivalent Openlayers features, we >> take our community with us, and we gain an existing, robust and >> welcoming community. >> What should Mapbuilder users do? >> Users >> have a few options. You already own the source code, so you are welcome >> to continue maintaining and extending the Mapbuilder code for as long >> as you like. At some point, users will likely want to upgrade, and at >> that point we suggest considering Openlayers for your application. It >> now provides the majority of the fuctionality that was previously only >> offered by Mapbuilder. >> What about Mapbuilder's standing with OSGeo? >> Having >> a graduated OSGeo project retire might be seen as an embarassment for >> OSGeo, however, I'd argue it is a strength. It shows two projects >> growing together under the OSGeo umbrella and evenually merging into a >> stronger, more focused community. >> However, it does raise a >> dilemma with regards to what should be done with a retired project. >> Some of the key OSGeo criteria, like “Community Backing” and >> “Best of >> Breed Software” will gradually be lost, so we should not continue to >> promote Mapbuilder. Still, we wouldn't want to erase Mapbuilder's >> history with OSGeo as our community has documented valuable lessons >> learned during the graduation process. >> I suggest a new “retired” category be created which keeps >> track of >> retired projects. >> Thanks >> We, >> the project steering committee, have derived a huge amount of pleasure >> building Mapbuilder and working with the Mapbuilder Community. For many >> of us, Mapbuilder has been a launching pad into a fullfilling Open >> Source and/or Geospatial career. We'd like to thank all the users, >> developers and supporters of Mapbuilder we have met along the way. >> >> >> >> The Mapbuilder Project Steering Committee, (in order of appearance): >> >> >> >> Cameron Shorter >> >> >> Mike Adair >> >> >> Patrice Cappelaere >> >> >> Steven M. Ottens >> >> >> Matt Diez >> >> >> Olivier Terral >> >> >> Andreas Hocevar >> >> >> Gertjan van Oosten >> >> >> Linda Derezinski >> >> >> >> -- >> Cameron Shorter >> Geospatial Systems Architect >> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 >> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 >> >> Think Globally, Fix Locally >> Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions >> http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's >> challenge >> Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great >> prizes >> Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the >> world >> http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ >> _______________________________________________ >> Mapbuilder-users mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mapbuilder-users >> >> >> > > -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Mapbuilder-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mapbuilder-users
