[OSM-talk] Xml design

[Mike Collinson]

At 08:31 PM 9/01/2007, SteveC wrote:
>* @ 08/01/07 01:41:47 AM immanuel.scholz at gmx.de wrote:
> > > What was the original rationale for the current XML design of k=""
> > > v=""  design?
> >
> > The idea was, that keys and values are choosen by user at need. They were
> > thought more as loose tags, not as fixed attributes (in fact, the original
> > design had just a text string where the user could enter anything). Think
> > of "the flickr way". The hope was, that what works for flickr, will work
> > for a map too.
>
>Almost...
>
>I sat down and tried to design an ontology and realised this was the
>dumbest thing in the world to try and do within a few minutes.
>
>IMHO it's worked out rather well.


It did/does indeed.

Just a thought. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Keep 
the <tag k='highway' v='trunk'  /> space for folksonomy and slowly 
(grindingly slowly? :-) ) develop <highway='trunk'>-like OSM "Core 
Set" for renderers to rely on and for swapping data with other open 
source initiatives.

Mike
Manila