[Openstreetmap-dev] openstreetmap roadmap?

[Lars Aronsson]

Tom Carden wrote:

> Lars Aronsson:
> > Right now I'm looking for something better than openstreetmap.org,
> 
> What would it look like?  Why isn't OpenStreetMap it?  What is OSM doing
> wrong?

I didn't want to say that OSM is doing anything wrong.  I think it 
is walking in the right direction.  But it has a long way to go, 
and I wish someone had come further.  The idea isn't exactly new.

The URL http://www.lysator.liu.se/rwi/s3daacfa.html
shows my previous attempt at hand drawing a map of Linköping, and 
that web page hasn't been updated since May 1, 1994. Compare that 
to my new attempt *eleven years* later, 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit/viewMap.jsp?lat=58.45&lon=15.6&scale=0.001

I called my early experiment the "Real World Interface" and this 
"version 2" in 1994 was based on the web.  My first ASCII- and 
telnet-based attempt in 1991 (RWI v. 1) was too primitive, which 
is why I decided to digitize literature (runeberg.org) instead of 
making maps, and later got involved in wikis (susning.nu, 
wikipedia.org).  That's where I've spent the last decade.  

Today everybody knows what the web is (which wasn't the case in 
1994) and we can take stuff like Wikipedia for granted.  Since May 
2000 we have GPS with 15 meter accuracy.  With all these 
components in place, and a good approach we should be able to 
attract a few thousand spill-over volunteers from Wikipedia, 
Slashdot, Geocaching.com and similar crowds.

For me this is just starting.  We should move forward as fast as 
we can, but no faster than that.  The Limehouse event should be 
replicated in more places, but the current primitive editing 
applet isn't "ready" for hundreds of new users.  It would take 
longer to explain all its deficiencies to hundreds of beginners 
than to redesign it and fix the problems.  Instead we need to 
attract a few at a time that will then help to improve the tools, 
so we can attract more users, and spiral upwards.  At every step, 
we should be aware that this is a long ladder.

> Steve has done his very best to make everything Open - where 
> would you like to see OpenStreetMap go, and what's stopping you 
> from helping?

Right now I'm helping by adding track logs and drawing "lines", 
using the Java applet.  I want to get a feeling for the volumes of 
data and work that are needed, and also to be able to show 
something to my friends.  The map of lines already looks better 
than my 1994 attempt.  The Java applet seems to be the bottleneck 
right now, but since a new version is already coming, I'll wait a 
little before I get involved in the coding.

I've been involved in OSM for exactly two months now, as 
documented on [[user:LA2]], and my planning horizon is 1 or 2 
weeks.  I will bring my GPS to Wikimania and hope to map parts of 
Frankfurt while geocaching, and then to demonstrate OSM to other 
attendees there.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se