[OSM-dev] Call to mobile developers: OSM binary file format

[Chris Browet]

Dear mobile developers,

We all have the same problem: the XML OSM format is not efficient for mobile
devices.
For the time being, we all develop our own solution to transform the XML in
whatever binary format suitable for a mobile application, often forcing the
user to use a specific desktop application for the transformation.

I would like to know if some of you would be interested in developing a
common binary format, rather than each application having its own,
incompatible with the others.

I know that there is a proposal at
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OSM_Mobile_Binary_Protocol, but it's
mostly server-based.
For merkaartor, I created an osb format (in anticipation of a winCE version)
loosely based on the proposal, but I don't agree with everything, so there
are some discrepancies.

If there is a critical mass of developers agreeing to work on this, we can
then organize the details.

- Chris -
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