MapBuilder surrenders… it’s another

TRANSLATION NOTES: Please read some comments at the end of this post.

It is painful to see interesting projects expressing shock (*), and accepting that have to get out… just a few days ago I did mention of the weakness of projects not associated with an aggressive plan of marketing that gives them sustainability.

It is not exactly the MapBuilder case, a project born in December 2003 with good results and has announced that it will draw a final stable version but can not continue with the project as it had been doing. Its greater integration was with OpenLayers, which seem to understand business, although now to MapBuilder is not so easy to keep up development rhythm.

So making a correction, it is not that they are abandoning (**) rather change collaboration model leaving to OpenLayers the role with the aim of a better taking advantage of resources.

What did does MapBuilder do well?

The greatest achievement of this project was to create an application under LGPL license that allowed without much complication create client mapping services for the Internet under transformation and XML rendering under AJAX environment. According to many, its simplified model Model-View-Controller (MVC) is relatively easy to use but mostly with very little server requirement.

• Map services may include GML, WFS, GeoRSS, and also Google Maps. But with its integration to OpenLayers can lead to also connect with Yahoo, Virtual Earth and Multimap
• Has support for both data publication via WFS … including transactional services (WFS-T)
• You can build services using Web Map Context (WMC) and Open Web Services Context.
• Is compatible with various OGC standards and is a project that OSGeo considered graduate

There are some very well mounted examples, because had managed to integrate its functionality with some Firefox versions (something old), Internet Explorer and Mozilla … so its limiting was not to track Google and Microsoft mad changes to their browsers, at the end of the road we landed with the painful reality:

“It is hard for someone to develop something good, for free,” not because they can not, but because everything in life costs money … even the weather.

The most serious problem is that as this application there are several, so that with much doubt and even stayed in the hope that someone will resume … even if being someone so bad that will finish purchasing it.

It is clear that MapBuilder version will possibly be the last, but from the OpenLayers side can provide more sustainable continuity.

TRANSLATION NOTES:

(*) rasgar sus vestiduras: when you’re in shock, grumpy or hurt then you tear your clothes

(**) tiren la toalla: when you abandon something because it’s very difficult or you feel you can not do it then you throw your towel