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<blockquote type="cite">In summary, technological advancements
have made vector tile rendering and hosting more affordable for
individual developers, reducing the need for the OSMF to support
style development financially. While there are still technical
challenges, it is debatable whether it is the OSMF's
responsibility to address them, given the many other competing
priorities.</blockquote>
This is a relief to hear, since the 2021 community survey sent a
clear message to the Board that the OSMF should stay out of the
vector tile business and leave it to the doocracy.[1] I should
also point out that OSM as a project has never devoted much
attention to how the map is rendered, aside from the website's
map; focus has been on collecting and entering data into the
geospatial database so that users may download the data to
generate maps or other geospatial products. Bucking vector tiles
to the doocracy would be fully consistent with OSM's historic
practice. The 2021 strategic plan outline did envision OSMF's
hosting a server for others to use for developing vector tiles,
but that was never done, and it seems it's no longer necessary.[2]<br>
</p>
<p>cheers,<br>
apm</p>
<p>[1] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/2021_Survey_Results">https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/2021_Survey_Results</a><br>
[2]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan_Outline#providing_tools_mappers_need_to_collect,_enter,_check_quality_of,_and_use_data">https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan_Outline#providing_tools_mappers_need_to_collect,_enter,_check_quality_of,_and_use_data</a><br>
<br>
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<p><br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/1/2023 11:04 PM, Brian M.
Sperlongano wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMrfQx1v3rg+vkZMAiJ2daDTQi1+AMAoiWfZFCrJNiwQZ+to3A@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jun 1, 2023 at
10:09 PM Mikel Maron <<a
href="mailto:mikel.maron@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">mikel.maron@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
The upside to vector tiles is flexibility in rendering for
various mapper use cases, aiding data creation. One idea I
heard recently was to show a map where older features fade
from the map. Pretty cool idea. Of course
ultimately depends on what tags and metadata are included
within the tiles (you can do everything) but something
like last edit time seems sensible property potentially.</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm a big proponent of vector tiles. After all, I helped
kick-start a vector-tile-based community map style[1].</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've also observed that the idea that the OSMF needs to
bankroll vector tile technology to jump-start style
development hasn't aged well. When the idea was first
proposed, rendering vector tiles took a long time and
serious hardware. We needed the OSMF to host vector tiles
because it was unreasonable for a casual developer to pay
for a high-end server to do the rendering or rent a cloud
server to do it. However, technology has changed, and it
was because individual software developers solved problems
they had and not because the Foundation kick-started
anything. It's now possible to render a planet vector tile
server for $1-2 of cloud compute time and about $10 a month
to store and host it online. This is how I host a vector
tile server[2] for my map style for the cost of a couple of
cups of coffee a month. Of course, if it gets too popular,
bandwidth costs money, and I'd be forced to cut it off.
However, these same economic considerations apply to anyone
wanting to dabble in vector-tile-style development and
they'd be able to spin up their own.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Another observation about vector tiles is that if the
tile schema is not tailored to the style, you waste A LOT of
bandwidth serving up tile data that isn't displayed to the
users. Sometimes that's okay, such as serving tiles with
multiple languages so the user can switch the display in
their browser. But if the tiles have certain data at zoom X,
but the style doesn't begin displaying that data until zoom
Y, or not at all, that's a waste of bandwidth, not to
mention unnecessary slower load times in the client. So, the
idea of a centrally-hosted "general purpose" tile set
becomes questionable for non-trivial styles. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>I acknowledge that there are technology gaps to
address. For example, minutely vector-tile updates are
not there yet (full planet renders in about 30 minutes
have been demonstrated), and I understand that there are
folks working on it. If the Foundation focused on closing
technology gaps like that, I'd be more interested, though
I'm not sure that would be the best use of limited funds.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div>In summary, technological advancements have made vector
tile rendering and hosting more affordable for individual
developers, reducing the need for the OSMF to support style
development financially. While there are still technical
challenges, it is debatable whether it is the OSMF's
responsibility to address them, given the many other
competing priorities.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>[1] <a
href="https://zelonewolf.github.io/openstreetmap-americana"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://zelonewolf.github.io/openstreetmap-americana</a></div>
<div>[2] <a
href="https://6ug7hetxl9.execute-api.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://6ug7hetxl9.execute-api.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/</a></div>
</div>
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<br>
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