[OSM-dev] OSM export incompatibilities between JOSM and Merkaartor

[Chris Browet]

>
> Don't take your ball and go home just yet. OSM can be a pretty gruff place,
> but I think (I hope!) the developers aren't completely closed-minded.
> Frederik was just trying to explain that the format in which JOSM saves its
> files is the same format used by many other tools, and is the format
> expected by the API when uploading new entities, so it was a natural fit. If
> there's a compelling reason to use text-based ID attributes, we'll hear it,
> and if it has merit, we can change all the tools to accomodate it.
> Otherwise, if your stateless format is primarily used for data exchange with
> other tools, why not have it use the format that most tools already expect?
>

I'm not trying to convince anyone to use text ID by itself.
I'm just a bit pissed off by "non-written established JOSM based" standards.
If I wanted to use "established standards", I'd just use Google Maps and
forget about OSM. All of us at OSM are doing this for at least one common
reason: We are not Panurge sheeps.

There is some schizophrenia at OSM:
On one side the message is "Do whatever you want", but the reality is "Do as
you are said otherwise it's pointless". I'm especially speaking about "not
standard-but-anyway-mandatory" tagging, here, but could be applied to the
matter at hand as well.
Far from saying there should be no standards on OSM, I'm strongly for it,
for consistency, but they should be assumed, agreed upon and documented.
To be short: OSM lacks governance.

If there is a "compelling reason" to use negative numeric ID other than
because JOSM does it that way, I've no problem with that. If it's written in
some non-JOSM specific api doc neither.

>
>
> I can answer one reason why some "other apps" convert xml text attributes
> to numeric IDs. For Osmosis, anyway, it deals with OSM data in a pipelined
> or stream-type fashion, and it uses the IDs sort entities, which is
> necessary when it applies changesets. And yes, it could be sorted by a text
> id as well...
>

My point exactly. Unless there is some hidden scheme in the numbering, the
new features IDs are random, anyway, right?


- Chris -
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