[OSM-dev] API 0.6 and changeset tags

[Hugh Barnes]

On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:01:50 +0100
Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

>     for 0.6 editing, JOSM will stop adding "created_by" tags to 
> individual objects (and might even remove existing ones, subject to 
> discussion) because I consider this unecessary database pollution. 
> Instead, the software and version will be available from the
> changeset tags. I assume that other editors will behave likewise?
> 
> Does anyone want to suggest a set of tags for the changeset? The API 
> wiki page uses, in an example, "created_by=JOSM 1.61". I am slightly
> in favour of doing something like
> 
> client=JOSM
> client-version=1234
> 

I'd rather use the term "user-agent", simply because this is closer to
what already works well (HTTP). Align where we can, I say.

HTTP clients typically concatenate version into the UA string (including
plug-ins), but that's because they (sort of) have to. I think it
could reduce the parsing load a little to put it in a separate
attribute.

> For JOSM, I also intend to add something like
> "client-plugins=a,b,c,d" where the installed plugins are listed but
> that's subject to discussion (may be deemed to invade user's privacy
> because everyone can then see what plugins he's using).
> 

This shouldn't hurt, either.

On privacy, again, good web clients will allow users to set the
details of their User Agent string. If this is a concern, it's probably
not hard for our editors to follow that model.

Cheers