GIS-like applications are definitely a field where Zope can shine. But most of the current MAP-Servers are interfacing with a RDBMS where a lot of the logic is placed into the database. If one thinks of geographic objects in a way of an object database like Zope, there is a different architecture needed. For example I think of a RTree indexing technic for the objects stored in the ZODB. This would open a lot of possibilities and would cure one of the problems of current GIS , where everything needs to be stored with a geographical view, which makes it sometimes cumbersome to store legacy information or data with a non gis semantic in these systems. On top of the RTree index one could build a python framework to present the geographical part of this data. These are just thoughts from an earth scientist, who needs to deal with this problem, and is in search for a solution. __Janko -- Institut fuer Meereskunde phone: 49-431-597 3989 Dept. Theoretical Oceanography fax : 49-431-565876 Duesternbrooker Weg 20 email: jhauser@ifm.uni-kiel.de 24105 Kiel, Germany