In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

After v2.4 last fall, MapGuide Open Source 2.5 has been released. Can anyone share thoughts or links regarding MapGuide's user community? Is it still vibrant as it used to be?

Major new items from the release notes: "

• PDF-based QuickPlot? for Fusion (RFC 124)
• Google Street View widget for Fusion (RFC 125)
• Support for user coordinate system dictionaries (RFC 127)
• Integrated IDE API documentation support for Java/.net (RFC 129)
• New enhanced Java wrapper API (RFC 129)
• Streamed HTTP feature/data/SQL query results (RFC 130)
• Various AJAX Viewer UI and functionality improvements
• Enhanced Redlining widget with expanded data format support  more info
• Fixes and enhancements to assorted Fusion widgets and templates  more info"

The project that initially emerged from Autodesk and became MapGuide Open Source just released its version 2.4.

I haven't found a summary of the changes so far. There seems to be numerous improvements to MapGuide OS's core, to Fusion Tools and FDO. Here's what looks like their list of major new items:

• A new service for profiling performance (RFC 110)
• Web Tier directories now include SVN metadata, allowing for the pulling of viewer updates and fixes instantly with a subversion client (RFC 111)
• Path scaling support in Symbol Definitions (RFC 113)
• New Feature Service API for save points RFC 114
• Improved Coordinate System conversion performance (RFC 116)
• IPv6 support (RFC 118)
• Support for enhanced URL information in Layer Definitions (RFC 119)
• Configurable Coordinate System dictonary paths via serverconfig.ini and webconfig.ini (RFC 122)
• Feature Join performance optimizations (RFC 123 and  http://themapguyde.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/improving-feature-join-experience-or.html)
• Toggle-able tooltips for AJAX and Fusion viewers (RFC 120)
• Lots of performance and usability improvements in Fusion (see  this link for an overview)
• Datum Transformation enhancements (RFC 94)
• WMS 1.3.0 support (RFC 95)
• QuickPlot? command for AJAX and Fusion viewers (RFC 96)
• EPSG/SRID code changes (RFC 98)
• WFS 1.1.0 support (RFC 106)
• Watermark support (RFC 108)

My main question when MapGuide Open Source comes to my mind: what's the status of its adoption? I had a lot of hopes for it when Autodesk made MapGuide open source along with providing the financial support for OSGeo's birth, but it seems like MapGuide does not get much love nowadays, at least not as much as competing solutions like GeoServer and MapServer. Any comments?

Still catching up my August holidays, here's the recent geospatial open source and open data geonews.

In general news:

• O'Reilly publishes an article named With new maps and apps, the case for open transit gets stronger: "There’s no reason why important civic infrastructure should get bound up in a fight between Apple and Google. And in communities with public GTFS, it won’t."
• Esri published an update on their relation with open source: "Esri has always hosted open code and samples in a variety of ways, but more can be done. Focus and motivation needs to be improved, and Esri is now making it a priority to improve its open source participation. More of Esri’s code should and will be open sourced in the coming days, weeks, months, and years." They are also on Github now, http://github.com/esri and http://github.com/arcgis
• sxdf
• India launched the beta of their open data portal
• MapQuest have a New Geocoding Service and Updated APIs Based on Open Data
• OpenGeo shares an article named Haitidata.org: using open source geospatial for disaster response planning
• FOSS4G software getting adopted, gvSIG 1.11 now official part of the standard software portfolio in the City of Munich and Luxembourg using open source GIS for cadastre
• DM shares a 2-parts article named Designing an Open Source Geospatial Solution to Manage Airport Noise and Operations
• For the curious ones, here's the new OSGeo Board and Charter members refreshed

In software news:

• The OSGeo-Live 6.0 GIS software collection has been released
• A serious OpenLayers competitor, Leaflet 0.4 has been released, actually, they're at version 0.4.3 now
• Believe it or not, MySQL inches closer to PostGIS with support of true spatial relationship functions
• Here's a short entry on Surface Interpolation in GeoServer and there's a new release, v 1.4.3, of GeoServer-Manager
• Nathan is enthusiastic about Five new awesomely awesome QGIS features, here's more on the Latest Style User Interface Improvements
• There's a new winGRASS 7 with R-integration
• Where's MapGuide Open Source? Here's MapGuide state of the union address (or: Results of the user/developer survey)

Still in catch up mode, here's the last three weeks of geospatial open source news in batch mode.

• Of huge pertinence to the geospatial open source and open data communities, the FOSS4G 2011 and State of the Map conferences are set to being in a few days. If you're in the Denver area and still hesiting, don't, they are really worth. I'll have to miss them myself this year, but Slashgeo's editor Nicolas Gignac will be attending and provide coverage.
• Directions Mag share an interview with Peter Batty on what to expect at FOSS4G 2011
• Another recent article at DM is named Open Source Licensing: Risk and Opportunity, risks related to intellectual property and governance
• Sextante, the open source spatial java data analysis library, can now work in ArcGIS, and run SAGA and GRASS GIS in ArcGIS via Sextante, and why not, use Sextante algorithms in ArcGIS Model Builder
• PostGIS's Paul Ramsey continues to share insightful comments in an entry named Open source is not free (as in beer) ...
• Users of Autodesk's MapGuide Open Source will be happy to know MapGuide Maestro 3.5 has been released. We already know that MapGuide Maestro 4.0 is introducing 'Local Conneciton Mode'
• V1 mentions updates to the open source multi-modal routing software OpenTripPlanner, which now supports Canada, Poland, India, Spain, Ireland, and Israel (we covered OpenTripPlanner in May 2005) 
• Tim links to a generic article on Quantum GIS in the GeoInformatics magazine, and here's a tip on modifying SVG symbols in QGIS
• Here's an entry on getting GPS data (GPX format) into SpatiaLite, either from QGIS, CSV or OGR
• Here's web-based PostGIS geometry and raster viewer, no need to install anything
• GeoServer now has extensions to monitor and audit your GeoServer installation