
\section{MapServer Project}
\label{sec:mapserver}
%\subtitle{Your article subtitle}
\emph{by Daniel Morissette }

\subsection{About MapServer}
\label{subsec:about_MS}
\htmladdnormallink{MapServer}{http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/} is a development environment for building spatially-enabled web mapping applications and services. It is fast, flexible, reliable and can be integrated into just about any GIS environment. It supports many popular spatial data formats including OGC web services.

MapServer features MapScript, a powerful scripting environment, that supports PHP, Python, Perl, \verb|C#|, Java and more. Using MapScript makes it fast and easy to build complex geospatial web applications. 

\subsection{Recent Events}
\label{subsec:events_MS}

\textbf{October 2006}
\begin{itemize}
\item MapServer 4.10.0 release
\end{itemize}

\textbf{February 2007}
\begin{itemize}
\item MapServer 4.10.1 release
\end{itemize}
 

\subsection{Future development - MapServer 5.0}
\label{subsec:development_MS}
The MapServer development team plans to release version 5.0 by the end of summer 2007. The \htmladdnormallink{5.0 Release Plan}{http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/release_plans/mapserver_5_0} outlines a number of planned updates, including:
\begin{itemize}
\item Support for AGG, an up and coming image renderer as an alternative to GD
\item Upgrade of WMS support to version 1.3.0
\item Improved OGC SOS Server support
\item New OGC OWS Common support version 1.0.0
\item Dynamic charting capability
\item Label prioritization
\item MapScript memory management fixes
\item Redesign of the LOG/DEBUG output mechanism
\item ... and much more ... 
\end{itemize}


\subsection{Statistics}
\label{subsec:statistics_MS}
\textbf{Mapserver-Users list} statistics (for 2007-Q1):
\begin{itemize}
\item Number of subscribers: 2344
\item Number of countries represented: 67 (In all continents but Antarctica)
\item Number of posts per month: 415 (average for Jan-Mar 2007) 
\end{itemize}

Also take a look at MapServer Development statistics at \htmladdnormallink{Ohloh}{http://www.ohloh.net/projects/3692}. Here are some excerpts:
\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{27 developers:} Over the past twelve months, 12 developers contributed new code to MapServer. This is a relatively large team, putting this project among the top 5\verb|%| of all project teams on Ohloh. For this measurement, Ohloh considered only recent changes to the code. Over the entire history of the project, 27 developers have contributed.
\item \textbf{Mature, well-established codebase:} The first lines of source code were added to MapServer in 2000. This is a relatively long time for an open source project to stay active, and can be a very good sign.
A long source control history like this one shows that the project has enough merit to hold contributors's interest for a long time. It might indicate a mature and relatively bug-free code base, and can be a sign of an organized, dedicated development team.
\end{itemize}
\textbf{Note:} The source code for MapServer is actually older than the source control history. The project started around 1996 but started using CVS only in 2000. 


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