[Openstreetmap] GPS point submission format

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Jono Bacon]
> This is dependent on who writes it. If the first throught he post is
> a C hacker, it will be a C program.

Perhaps.  It also depend on the availability of useful libraries.  I'm
currently investigating possible exchange formats, and the one I
research at the moment, ArcView/ESRI Shapefile, have C libraries for
reading and writing.

The nice thing about this format is that it is supported by several
GIS programs already (qgis and grass at least), so we get access to
visualization tools without having to do anything more.

Anyone here know which GIS formats are in common use?  Which one of
these are capable of storing GPS points with accuracy info?  We
probably also want it to store info on who collected the information,
and perhaps some info on license.

> The key here is simplicity and automation. All of this needs to be
> available in a simple to use client so the layperson can contribute
> to OpenstreetMap.

Absolutely.  It should be possible to just 'apt-get install
openstreetmap-collector' and the rest should just take care of
itself. :)

After all, we are trying to create a WIKI for geographical
information, so we want to make it easy to contribute. :)

> As for the database type, there does need to be a searchable and
> usable database and the database type is only really of interest to
> the OpenstreetMap hackers as it will ultimately be transformed into
> an accurate graphical map.

Both MySQL and PostgreSQL are as far as I know capable of handling
location-types with operations to select all points within a region.
But a database should not be required to collect GPS points.  This
should be for the central collection point, and not for the GPS
carriers. :)