[OSM-dev] Timestamps

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

hy-soft wrote:
> GPS-tracks usually have a timestamp. So, I thought, when importing data,
> this timestamp is preserved. Every Editor should preserve it and not
> touch it (unless $user chooses to tamper with it).

That's exactly what we do with GPS tracks; if you upload them, the 
timestamp is not changed.

If you create nodes/ways/relations however, that is a separate process 
(and not always associated with a GPS track - think tracing from 
imagery). When creating an object, you could be looking at any number of 
GPS tracks covering any length of time. It is not possible to deduce a 
sensible timestamp in a general fashion. (If some later edits an object 
while looking at an older GPS tracks, would the timestamp then have to 
be moved further into the past?)

Because of all these complexities, we simply use the timestamp when the 
object entered the OSM database.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"