[Openstreetmap-dev] openstreetmap roadmap?

[Tom Carden]

Lars,

Thanks for the patient and detailed reply.  Let me echo Steve in saying 
that your input and enthusiasm is really valued, and that we are 
listening. A little patience wouldn't go amiss, nobody is getting paid 
here, and nobody *should* be doing this or that...

Aside from time spent answering mail to this list, development is 
proceeding at about 1 or 2 hours a week for me... not enough, but all I 
can give.  One thing we might do with the potential funds I mentioned is 
pay for a week or two of targetted coding from rentacoder or similar.  A 
coherent and complete API and reference would be essential before that 
to maintain the vision though.

Regards,

Tom.


Lars Aronsson wrote:
> 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.
> 
>