Slashgeo

GISUser offers 10 reasons to migrate to MapGuide Enterprise. Very related to the MapGuide Open Source project. I copied below a few other previous related stories, including this entry on choosing between MapServer and MapGuide OS with pertinent comments. To be honest, my team tried MGOS last spring and we were confronted with serious challenges regarding Linux compilation. We finally chose another OSGeo webmapping project. GIS User's list (read the first link above to learn more): "Platform Flexibility, Single Authoring Tool, Programming Flexibility, Simpler Viewing, More Innovation, Lower Cost of Ownership, Server-Side Processing, The DWF Advantage, Prettier Maps, Easier Data Access and Remote Administration"

The Between the Poles blog informs us about this release. From their summary : "The MapGuide Open Source Project Team are pleased to announce the release of MapGuide Open Source 2.0.1. This release includes support for FDO 3.3.1 and bug fixes since 2.0.0. For the complete list please see MapGuide Open Source 2.0.1 Release Notes."

Not major, but pretty useful for those seeking MapGuide Open Source information: the MapGuide Central. Via this blog.

The dont adjust your mind blog informs us Fusion 1.1.0 has been released. This is important news for the MapGuide Open Source community and users. From the announcement: "Fusion is a web-mapping application development framework for MapGuide OS and MapServer built primarily in JavaScript. It allows non-spatial web developers to build rich mapping applications quickly and easily. Using widgets, developers are able to add, remove, or modify functionality using standard-compliant HTML and CSS. Fusion does not require any proprietary browser plug-ins and works in all the major browsers on Windows, Mac, and Linux." The release notes, 60+ new features and bugs squashed, can be found here. We mentioned Fusion before, see related stories below.

Geospatial Solutions offers an article named The history of MapGuide. The introduction: "Until the mid- to late 1990s, GIS was confined to large workstations that could house both the data and the stand-alone software that made the end product of GIS (which was often a hard-copy map). However, it was at this time that the Internet and networks were also becoming more common, creating a population of users who had access to the World Wide Web. GIS was slowly being adopted within the private sector through mainstream IT departments, but had already become a mature implementation in governmental and academic organizations. Because government and academia needed to distribute maps to users who lacked expensive and proprietary GIS software, Web mapping was born." See also related stories below.

This is an extract from a personal email. It's obviously very incomplete and you are welcomed to share additions and corrections in comments below. The context is a discussion about the user-friendliness of today's open source geospatial software. Here below you'll find direct links to screenshots of popular OSS software, all previously mentioned on the site (see related stories below).
"You are absolutely right with saying that documentation and user-friendliness has not been a strength of geospatial open source software in the past, but that has significantly changed in recent years and is still evolving very rapidly. Before I give a list of examples of the top of my head (experts could provide even more insights), I'd like to focus on this: sharing information and knowledge is the key here. Even if the benefits of open source geospatial software can surpasses its inconveniences for many applications, stakeholders must be aware of all the opportunities available to make the best technology choice possible otherwise people just stick with what they know, even if it's not the best solution.

Examples of some open source geospatial software that are now "user friendly":
** GIS:
* Quantum GIS can be considered quite user-friendly. It is far from being as full featured as ArcGIS, but can do surprisingly a lot, especially with the GRASS GIS plugin that unleashes serious geoprocessing power within the QGIS graphical user interface.
* There are plenty of other open source GIS that have good graphical user interfaces: uDig, OpenJump, gvSIG and several others.

** Web mapping:
* Autodesk's MapGuide Open Source also have map authoring tools such as Maestro and Fusion.
* OpenLayers.org while one can simply copy existing examples, there's OpenLayers Architect and LiziLayers that offers enhanced WYSIWYG capabilities.
* The MapFish.org framework also a Studio too now.
* You can even generate web maps directly from within the Quantum GIS interface.

** Other:
* Several other open source geospatial software can be considered quite user-friendly for what they do (e.g. GeoServer). Others, such as PostGIS (GUI tool), are probably as 'user-friendly' as other spatial RDBMS are. Even OpenStreetMap has a feature-rich GUI for editing maps.

This list is obviously incomplete (I'm still no expert! ;-), but I hope it does convince you that open source geospatial has come a long way in the recent years and is continuing to improve at a crazy rate. That said, yes, advanced proprietary software is still very appropriate (even required!) for some applications, it really depends on what you want to do! But one must also be aware of all the options at hand."

MapGuide Open Source 2.1 has been released. From the announcement: "Along with the many bug fixes, this release has: * many improvements in performance, scalability and stability; * an improved error reporting system; * raster re-projection; * and CS-Map as the coordinate system library." See also related stories below.