[Openstreetmap] Re: To the debianistas

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Steve Coast]
> The idea here is that the laptop is completely automatic so I can
> give it to anyone with very simple instructions. They give it back
> to me and I manually grab the (badly formed) gpx files and upload
> them. It should be resilient to having the gps / wifi unplugged, or
> being turned off etc.  It should JustWork.

I'm interested in making this happen.  But As with Amaury, I have a
few suggested changes to the design.

 - Use gpsd and gpxlogger, and do some log rotation based on timespan
   or file length.

 - Upload using http and fall back to email.  This work on more
   networks than the email solution.

> What I would like now is a debian package that does this for me, and
> emails the gpx files to me. It should take two config options:
>
> * email address
> * gps device

gpsd these days are completely automatic.  It detects gps device
automatically.

> And all in a debian package. Petter? Other Debian people? Having not
> made a deb or have huge amounts of experience with gpsd...

Should be doable.  I've already started on scripts to do this, but
never found time to complete it.  Should we make a new directory in
subversion?  osm-autologger, perhaps?

Making the debian package is the easy part.  Getting the logic for log
rotation and uploading right is a bit harder.

How should we do it?  Place the machine online and do hacking on it,
or just share files using subversion?  I haven't got a gpsd-enabled
gps these days, as my last one is broken, and the new Garmin one
require a kernel module to function with gpsd (not present on my
system yet).  But I do have a few draft scripts.

We need a debian package of the gpxlogger program.  I would prefer to
get it included into the gpsd package instead of having it as a
separate program, as this would increase the user base and reduce the
dependency requirements.  Amaury, what do you say?  Interested in
pushing it into the gpsd upsteam package?