Open Source GIS: Autodesk’s first year in review

Autodesk‘s first year as a member of the open source community has been a successful one, as far as Kevin Flanders, Peoplegis President, reported.

About three months ago MapGuide, a web-based platform aimed at deploying web mapping applications and geospatial web services, became a fully endorsed project within the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Originally developed by Autodesk, MapGuide besides being considered a leading project within the GIS arena – see “The State of the Open Source GIS” (PDF) – now has some interesting facts that is worth to mention, among them the number of downloads: 30.000 in the first year.

Bob Bray Autodesk Platform Software Development Manager and Architect, talking to Kevin said:

the open source development community has become a true development partner for Autodesk, generating tremendous enhancements and upgrades to the code base in significantly less time than it would have taken Autodesk to do it alone.

Also Daniel Morrissette, now mapgears President, was very impressed with Autodesk move.

He feels that Bray and his colleagues have converted their minds to working “open” instead of their old way. [..] To Morrisette, Autodesk is not just “acting the part,” it really believes in this new process.

I totally agree with Kevin saying, that Autodesk got its goal for faster code development realized, and this is likely due both to the feedbacks by users and to the way Bray got into Open Source.

People matters a lot, when it comes to the hybrid production model.

Read the full article.

Technorati Tags: Open Source GIS, BobBray, Autodesk, MapGuide

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