Jackie Ng’s Mapguide Open Source user survey

22 August 2012 Geoff Zeiss

Last week Jackie Ng, developer of the Maestro authoring tool and major contributor to MapGuide Open Source, which is an Open Source Geospatial Foundation project, conducted a survey of MapGuide Open Source users to which he received nealry 75 responses.  He’s released an analysis of the results of the survey.  Here’s a few highlights,

  • You all aren’t freeloaders 🙂 There is enough value in the commercial version of MapGuide for most of you to own a commercial license, and you are knowledgeable enough about the differences to know whether the commerical or open source version is more suitable.
  • On that same subject, there is a sizable interest to donate/fund for any improvements. I’m guessing there just isn’t a unified consensus as to what should be improved. It certainly doesn’t look like GDAL raster performance/stability is one of them.
  • We seem to have a healthy group of “power users”, we just need some of these users to upgrade to the next level and start becoming involved in actual development/maintenance.
  • Most MapGuide Open Source web application authors (49 out of 74) use Maestro as their primary authoring tool.
  • Documentation/Samples definitely can be improved a lot. We seem to be more reactive (mailing list answers) than proactive (wiki/blogs/etc) when it comes to this however.
  • The 2.2 to 2.4 gap was just too long. We need to release more early and release more often.  [MapGuide Open Source 2.4 RC1 was released in early July.]

Jackie also commented that “as of the 2013 release, Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server (AIMS) truly has a unique commercial advantage in terms of features.

  • The product formerly known as Topobase now integrated.
  • A native FDO provider for DWG files. The killer feature that was 6
    years waiting.
  • A specialized viewer for mobile devices.
  • Integrated GeoREST
“These are real features of value that’s well worth the price of a
commercial license. And it seems that most of [the respondents] agree…”
Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss has more than 20 years experience in the geospatial software industry and 15 years experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions for the utilities, communications, and public works industries. His particular interests include the convergence of BIM, CAD, geospatial, and 3D. In recognition of his efforts to evangelize geospatial in vertical industries such as utilities and construction, Geoff received the Geospatial Ambassador Award at Geospatial World Forum 2014. Currently Geoff is Principal at Between the Poles, a thought leadership consulting firm. From 2001 to 2012 Geoff was Director of Utility Industry Program at Autodesk Inc, where he was responsible for thought leadership for the utility industry program. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Enterprise Software Development at Autodesk. He received one of ten annual global technology awards in 2004 from Oracle Corporation for technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle. Prior to Autodesk Geoff was Director of Product Development at VISION* Solutions. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering relational spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration, and long transactions (data versioning) in the utility, communications, and public works industries. Geoff is a frequent speaker at geospatial and utility events around the world including Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, MundoGeo Connect (Brazil), Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, India Geospatial Forum, Location Intelligence, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events in US, Japan and Australia. Geoff received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007-2009.

View article by Geoff Zeiss

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