[OSM-talk] relating trace points to gpx files

[Lars Aronsson]

Nick Black wrote:

> > This mantra is being repeated so often, that it is almost becoming
> > a truth.
> 
> What do you mean?  The reason tracklogs aren't public is because of
> legal concerns , mainly relating to future contraints of the Freedom
> of Information Act.  It isnt a Mantra - its a legal opinion.

No, it's not the result of an informed decision.  It's a feature 
not yet implemented (which I can accept) and an excuse invented 
after the fact, often mentioned as an explanation.

In the edit applet, trackpoints are yellow.  This doesn't mean 
that all other colors have been tried and found to be inferior to 
yellow.

If I draw a line segment and next day find that the segment has 
moved, there currently is no function to tell me who moved it.  
The one who moved it also has no means to tell me why they did so.
This is just because these functions haven't been implemented yet.  
We have absolutely no consensus that they should never be 
implemented.

And we have no consensus that trackpoints must never be possible 
to trace back to a file.  We have some concerns (not a consensus, 
but still valid and interesting concerns) that it might be a 
privacy problem if we can locate a person to a point in place and 
time.  But providing the map editor with information that this 
point belongs to tracklog file #134 is *not* a privacy problem.

I don't require that somebody should implement these functions now 
or anytime.  This is a volunteer project, and I'm happy every time 
anybody makes improvements.  But we should keep a clear record of 
what has been decided and what has not.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se