GeoServer

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GeoServer

Developer:	The Open Planning Project
Latest release:	1.4.0 / December 19, 2006
OS:	GNU/Linux, MS-Windows, Mac OS X, POSIX compliant systems
Use:	Geographic information system
License:	GPL
Website:	http://geoserver.org

GeoServer is an open source Web Feature Server 1.0 and Web Map Server 1.1.1 reference implementation. It was started by a non-profit organization called The Open Planning Project (TOPP), to help build an interoperable Spatial Data Infrastructure by providing high quality, easy to use, open source software to potential data providers.

GeoServer allows the publishing of geospatial data as maps/images (using the Web Map Server), as actual data (using the Web Feature Server), and allows users to update, delete, and insert features (using the Web Feature Server-Transactional). The focus of the software is ease of use and support for open standards, in order to enable anyone to quickly share their geospatial information in an interoperable way.

MapServer is a comparable open source product, having much of the same feature set. One distinction between the two is that Mapserver has a somewhat older development environment, written in C and invoked via CGI, whereas GeoServer is written in Java. GeoServer also distinguishes itself by having a web-based Graphical user interface for easier configuration, and by implementing the Transaction portion of the Web Feature Server specification to allow editing of spatial information both through the web and by desktop clients such as uDig.