[OSM-dev] Looking for Hackers/Admins to build OSM sandbox

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

   many of you will be familiar with the test APIs available from
*.dev.openstreetmap.org - that's where every now and then a new release
of the OSM web site code is made available for test driving before stuff
is incorporated into the central setup.

These test sites are, alas, rather limited. They are fit for the purpose
of testing API features, but they only have the API and a mostly empty
database behind them. These test sites lack, for example

* processing of GPS traces
* publication of planet files and incremental updates
* tile rendering (you always see the real OSM tiles on the test API
sites, not something drawn from the actual test data)
* coastline processing
* Nominatim, Overpass, Routing, Taginfo...

Not all of that is super important. But we do have regular questions
from programmers who would like to test something with diffs, or from
mappers who would like to construct a complex junction layout and see
how it looks on the map, or maybe even how the router processes it.

Doubtlessly, it would be useful for many people to have a somewhat
complete OSM sandbox.

FOSSGIS e.V. could - subject to a funding decision by the FOSSGIS
members which I can champion when the time comes - make available the
server(s) needed for such a project. But we need more than servers, we need

1. A concept: which services would we like to run, how will they
interact, is one instance enough or do we need several, what amount of
data will we store by default - and deriving from that: What kind of
server(s) do we need?

2. People to install all this

3. People to to maintenance and administration on the running system

I briefly raised the idea with OSMF OWG ("would certainly be useful, we
don't have concrete plans for something like that right now, and if
something came out of this that we can re-use in our setup, all the
better") and with the FOSSGIS board ("sounds good, and if something
comes out of this that others can re-use when setting up a sandbox, all
the better"). So at least we don't have anyone saying it's a stupid idea.

I'm now looking for a small team of people who have the time and engery
to plan and install such a sandbox together. You'd have to spec the
system so that I can go back to FOSSGIS and request the funding, and
then FOSSGIS would provide the server(s) and you could start working.

I'll send the same message to talk-de. Of course I hope that all
interested people will work on this together, and that there aren't
three competing proposals in the end.

I've tentatively set up a wiki page to coordinate discussio/efforts but
feel free to ignore the Wiki and discuss elsewhere if deemed more suitable:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Full_Stack_Sandbox

Bye
Frederik

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