MapServer 2024 Sponsorship Opportunities
MapServer is one of the founding OSGeo Projects, and is overseen by the MapServer project steering commitee. We are looking for your help in 2024, through financial support, to help fund the items listed on this page.
You can sponsor us through GitHub Sponsors or through the OSGeo foundation, from which we can request an annual budget. Please see our Sponsorship page for details.
MapServer has always been at the forefront of supporting geospatial standards. The OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) are creating new standards to replace the XML-based standards such as WMS, WFS, and WCS. MapServer 8 already supports OGC API - Features (OAFeat), the successor to WFS, but funding is required to implement the following standards:
- OGC API - Maps (OAMaps) - successor to WMS
- OGC API - Coverages (OACov) - successor to WCS
- OGC API - Tiles (OATiles)
Your financial contribution supports developers to get compensated for the work they do to implement the requested features.
As a web server, security is critical part of MapServer development and maintenance. The MapServer PSC (Project Steering Committee) release patches for security vulnerabilities for the last release branch of the two most recent release series. Proactive security measures are also taken such as code scans, and using fuzzers to find vulnerabilities. Funding will allow this work to be expanded to ensure more secure software.
Reviewing pull requests, increasing test coverage, fixing bugs and modernising build tools and language features are time consuming tasks that are usually not backed by companies.This work is currently carried out on a voluntary basis.
Your financial contribution supports the MapServer developers to review and help resolve issues encountered by MapServer users.
New features and releases require corresponding documentation and reference examples to be updated at https://mapserver.org/.
Your financial contribution supports users and technical writers to get compensated for the work they do to keep the documentation comprehensive and up-to-date.
For major changes, developers gather in-person during code sprints. In addition to travel and accommodation costs, your contribution ensures that individual contributors who are not backed by a company get financial compensation for their work during code sprints. Furthermore, your contribution ensures that the participants don't have to pay for other costs like room rent, catering and accommodation.
Last year members of the MapServer PSC attended the OSGeo Community Sprint and various OGC Code Sprints on standards development.
MapServer contributors present workshops and talks at relevant conferences, like FOSS4G and local OSGeo events. Your financial contribution is used to cover preparation time, travel and accommodation costs that are not backed by an employer or institution. MapServer is also featured on OSGeoLive - which requires updates to ensure the latest version of MapServer is available for new users to trial.
