[OSM-dev] [Marble-devel] NOTICE: gazetteer.osm.org being retired

[Torsten Rahn]

Hi,

> I don't think OSM provides any services that the public should consider
> "stable" in the sense of "99.999% uptime, transaction guaranteed or your
> money back". The closest might be the API server, but even that could
> possibly go down as has been described before.

I'm NOT talking about a 99,99999%-I'll sue you if you don't deliver-guarantee. 

I know that this is not possible to deliver for an open source project.

What I am talking about was _the aim_ and _the strong intention_ of keeping a 
certain API and service up and running for a time that you commit to. I know 
that there can be power outages, lack of manpower or whatever obstacle. That 
is all understandable and natural. 

The only thing that I'm asking for and that I think should be easily 
deliverable is the communicated intention of keeping APIs stable for a 
communicated amount of time. And that there is a communication channel that I 
can subscribe to that informs me about deprecation of APIs soon enough before.

When I release a stable version of Marble I give no guarantee that running 
this version of Marble will not toast your cat. I'm also not giving any 
guarantee that it wouldn't crash. But by releasing a stable version of Marble 
I publically announce: here is something that you can use with least danger of 
crashes. I did my best to prevent crashes and I will surely do my best to keep 
APIs stable. 
That kind of commitment is what I'm asking for. Nothing more. 

> OSM is about the data itself, not the services around it. The services
> available on the website and wiki are there because someone thought it
> would be a nice way to help debug or otherwise improve mapping and map
> data quality, not to provide a service to external users like KDE,
> Microsoft, Google or anyone for that matter.

I could exchange "data" for "Free Software" and it's clear that 
OpenStreetMap's position is not at all different from the one of any other 
Open Source project. 

> The bottom line is: if you want a stable service, run it yourself. That's
> why the data is under a relatively free and open license.

With the same attitude I could say: You want a stable KDE or Marble release? 
Check out a development version of the software, compile it and make it stable 
yourself! Works nicely in theory ....

Best Regards,

Torsten