= !MapGuide RFC 169 - Deprecate DWF-related functionality and services =

This page contains a change request (RFC) for the !MapGuide Open Source project.
More !MapGuide RFCs can be found on the [wiki:MapGuideRfcs RFCs] page.

== Status ==

||RFC Template Version||(1.0)||
||Submission Date||10 Jan 2019||
||Last Modified||10 Jan 2019||
||Author||Jackie Ng||
||RFC Status||draft||
||Implementation Status||pending||
||Proposed Milestone||3.3||
||Assigned PSC guide(s)||(when determined)||
||'''Voting History'''||(vote date)||
||+1||||
||+0||||
||-0||||
||-1||||
||no vote||||

== Overview ==

This RFC intends to deprecate DWF support in MapGuide for eventual removal in a future release after 3.3

== Motivation ==

A [https://themapguyde.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-short-mapguide-poll-what-you-said.html recent survey] showed that a majority of users take advantage of DWF-related support and services in MapGuide.

Coupled with Autodesk backing out of MapGuide development and the technological dead-end of the DWF toolkit and the limited knowledge among remaining developers in maintaining/fixing/enhancing this aspect of MapGuide, there is not much justification to keep this support around.

== Proposed Solution ==

Mark the following classes as deprecated:

{{{
TBD
}}}

Usage of Drawing Source and Drawing Layer Definition resources is also deprecated.

The resource service currently re-uses DWF Toolkit zip package code for package loading and creation. In order to prepare for eventual removal of DWF support (and the DWF Toolkit) in a future release, the package loading and creating code will be replaced with an alternate zip implementation from the minizip contrib library that is already part of our internal zlib sources.

== Implications ==

The deprecation of DWF support should be a signal to users to look at alternative solutions to existing functionality that DWF provided.

== Test Plan ==

Ensure package creation and loading are still functional under the replacement minizip implementation.

== Funding / Resources ==

Community