[talk-ph] SOTM 2012 feedback

[Michael Collinson]

Hallo Maning and all and to Mario Baras who was at SOTM 2012 and is on 
this list.

I see from Maning's post to the general talk list that he is already 
familar with the French http://live.openstreetmap.fr/. Now here is an 
interesting thing.  OSM France have also built and are operating a 
caching download/proxy upload server for editing.  It down loads diffs 
every minute.  JOSM users can re-direct their editors to use it instead 
of the London server. There is also a way to trick Potlatch into using 
it. For French and many European users it provides much better response. 
When you upload, then it sends your edit to London. It has been running 
for 6 months and appears to work correctly.

And then another thing:  OpenStreetMap France also have funding to do 
things. But they cannot spend it in France. Dot, dot, dot.

So I asked Christian Quest, "If there was interest, could they fund a 
similar server in the Philippines?" and got a very positive response 
with the caveat that a proposal has to be presented to the funding 
organisation and they can say yes or no. The proposal could consist of 
a) server(s), b) travel by OpenStreetMap France to the Philippines to 
train (perhaps not vital but good to create a working relationship) and 
c) funding to put it in a high availability data centre.

So, any interest?

In addition to helping poor connections (comments?), I see it as a way 
to build up a strong system administration team to complement the 
mapping community. The Philippine and Japan communities are probably the 
strongest in Asia right now.  I would also suggest that it could be used 
as a H.O.T server to be used in natural calamities if anyone is 
interested in getting involved there ... that might also improve the 
chances of funding.

Mike