[OSM-dev] Gisify relations

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Wolfgang Schreiter wrote:
> the style of your response suggests to me that for some reason you take this 
> personally. 

Not the case; I only found it somewhat condescending of someone who has 
not made much of an appearance in OSM at all to say that something 
(whatever it might be) would be required for OSM "if it takes itself 
seriously", implying that we're just a bunch of clowns at the moment.

We have had our share of professionals offering their advice, but it was 
hardly ever advice that came from knowing OSM well - only advice 
transferred from other, usually non-crowdsourced, non-open, 
non-spare-time, and non-hobbyist projects based on the totally 
unreflected assumption that as OSM "grew up" it would certainly have to 
do as the "professionals" do.

> The success of osm depends on the ability of software to make use of the 
> data, on the relative simplicity to produce such software, and on the 
> possibility for end-users to understand the provided data and form a mental 
> model about it.

No.

OSM's success on the user side is absolutely non-critical. Interest for 
what we do is so big that everyone is eager to incorporate our data as 
soon as practically possible. OSM data is being converted in all kinds 
of formats and data models without us having to move at all. Our part in 
this is to make sure that the community remains intact, that mappers 
join the project and keep with it, that our body of data grows and is 
kept in order. That is the crucial bit - not how easy it is to use our 
data in a run-off-the-mill GIS system. That bit is being accounted for 
by anyone with an old-style GIS background and some programming skills.

> If you've read the spec I mentioned, you will 
> know that its geometry model goes way beyond what can be usefully tagged at 
> the moment, including a clear polygon definition and collections of 
> linestrings and polygons, just to name the most important. 

As I have pointed out, those linestrings do not have topology and thus 
are rather useless for what we want to do. The spec you quoted is a 
geometry spec, not a topology spec. You will be able to draw maps wirh 
that, but you won't be able to do routing if you are too fixated on 
geometry alone. Look to GDF if you're desperate for an ISO standard that 
is nearer to what OSM tries to do.

> and it would indeed be 
> wise to support what the industry out there is already doing.

I reject the idea that anything "the industry" is doing is worth 
following. Worth looking at, perhaps.

> Or, in case that was still not concrete enough: in Austria alone, there are 
> currently on the order of 750 geometries that are perfectly valid in osm but 
> not digestible by quite a few GIS-enabled databases

How sad. Luckily our own software nevertheless works with them. Maybe 
those GIS-enabled databases should be improved ;-)

> *including our own*.

As I have already pointed out to you, OSM does not use a GIS-enabled 
database.

> Doesn't that strike you as odd? Care to explain that fact before a 
> professional audience ("you know, we abhor any sort of standard, and who is 
> Mr. Oracle anyway")?

OSM is not involved in a sales pitch to a professional audience. 
Professionals are paid for their job, so they might just as well invest 
a few hours to get OSM data into the shape they require (or, if that's 
too much of a bother, buy "clean" data from someone else). Anything that 
shifts work away from the "professional audience" you are speaking of 
and onto the shoulders of mappers is a move in the wrong direction. 
Mappers don't get paid. They should have it easy.

> I can live with osm confining itself to be an experimental drawing tool 
> database

See, that's what I do not like about your tone. Experimental? Drawing 
tool? Right.

> and will then certainly find matters more worthy of my time. 

Lucky you!

You are one of those guys who wants OSM to do everything differently so 
that users get their stuff on a silver plate. I don't see any merit in 
this. Let people do this as add-on services. There are already WMS and 
WFS services publishing OSM data, and we're only seeing the beginning of 
that.

GIS professionals haven't managed to produce anything remotely like OSM, 
ever. Why should we suddenly look to them for guidance?

Bye
Frederik

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