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MapGuide Open Source
March 7, 2006 was a big day for the geospatial community, because that was when Bob Bray, MapGuide Technical Architect at Autodesk, hit the switch that released MapGuide Open Source to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation ( http://mapguide.osgeo.org .)
There are several reasons why I see this as an important milestone for the geospatial IT community. First it shows a serious commitment by a major geospatial vendor to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation and to the wider open source community. The code that was released on that day represents many person years of development effort by Autodesk engineers.
Next generation web mapping
MapGuide OS introduces the
next generation of web mapping. For those people whose vision of the future foresees field staff at utilities, telcos, and other organizations responsible for maintaining network infrastructure empowered to take responsibility for the facilities database, MapGuide OS represents the platform on which these solutions can be built. I would go so far as to draw an analogy with Web 2.0. Web 1.0 is about publishing, which is what MapGuide 6.x, MapServer, and web mapping products from other geospatial vendors are about. The item in Tim O'Reilly's list (What is Web 2.0 ? ) that really brought this home is
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
publishing --> participation
MapGuide Open Source is about enabling participation where the people in the field will be able not only to view and markup, but also to update spatial, attribute, and connectivity data from a handheld in the field.
If you want to see some early, but exciting, MapGuide OS sample applications, go to MapGuide OS Sample Apps . These examples include DWF and AJAX clients and how to link MapGuide to Google Earth.
March 24, 2006 in Open Source Geospatial | Permalink
Comments
I like the Web 2.0 analogy you make here and I see the idea of 'participation' in web GIS as being a critical missing piece. Taking the leap from 'GIS in the backroom' to an open two-way flow of information is quite liberating to consider. For some, it seems like moving out of the backroom is quite a scary prospect because their business is so tightly tied to the need for specialists. But with technical barriers being removed by products like MapGuide Open Source (and others) it's raising the bar for analysts/specialists to pop open the blackbox.
I've long hoped for the ultimate thin client for spatial updates from an endless number of platforms - so that I could deliver data to clients rather than derived works requiring speciality software.
Where will consulting be in 5 years when clients will not just demand a map product or report - but will demand you give them the tools to do their own maps and reports? Pretty exciting prospect...
Posted by: Tyler Mitchell | Mar 24, 2006 3:20:21 PM
