[OSM-talk] "Crudely-drawn pint glasses"

David Earl david at frankieandshadow.com
Wed Jan 30 17:40:09 GMT 2008


On 30/01/2008 12:58, J.D. Schmidt wrote:
> Nick Whitelegg skrev:
>>> Anther solution would be on-demand mapping: the renderers, in whatever 
>>> falvour, are online somewhere and you go through a dialogue to decide on 
>>> an area, choose your features and then get a custom map back a short 
>>> while later - either on screen or as a PDF or whatever.
>> Sounds a good idea. An "OSMcustommaps.org" or similar could be created, a 
>> user could sign up and specify their preferences, write a Mapnik XML file 
>> specific to that user and issue them with an ID, then a user could have 
>> their custom rendered style simply by requesting tiles off that server. 
>> Since most people probably want the standard OSM maps, it would have 
>> relatively low levels of use, so  I can't see bandwidth being a major 
>> issue - particularly if caching occurs.
>>
>> Nick
> 
> And how and from where will they be invoiced, and in what way will the 
> income be put to use in OSM ?
> 
> Or do you suggest that it should be a freebie service, provided to Joe 
> Public Esq. and Jim Company Ltd in the manner of free as in both speech 
> AND beer ?
> 
> I mean, if they need a leaflet with a costumized map showing all their 
> store location, then ofcourse they should be able to use any and all of 
> OSM-ressources(*) free of charge to make that map for their leaflet, right ?

Yes, why not offer a free automated map making service? They are already 
benefiting from all our time in producing the maps in the first place 
which is a huge value.

YouTube, Facebook, Flickr all manage to do offer vast resources for free 
(even before they were taken over by bigger concerns). Yes they all have 
business models which bring in some money, but others rely on donations.

more ...

> Dutch
> 
> 
> (*) OSM-ressources in this regard means : CPU-time, making specific 
> mapnik XML stylesheets for people, getting pestered with requests for 
> changes in the XML stylesheet when they find out that their company logo 
> really looks bad, on the colourschema they specified for the map, and 
> that their customers normally navigate through town by directions to the 
> various pubs anyway, so could they have the pint-glasses brought back as 
> well...

We already offer lots of resources, just not in the way this 
conversation envisages. But no, we don't make custom hand-crafted XML 
style sheets, obviously not. We offer a dialog which lets them choose 
the features, styles and so on that they want.

> Because if they are too lazy to read the instructions on getting Mapnik 
> or one of the other rendering engines up and running to generate tiles 
> and maps locally, you can bet they are also too lazy to write their 
> stylesheets on their own, or even read the instructions on a potential 
> OSMcustommaps.org site.
> I might be a cynical S.O.B, but based on multiple years dealing with 
> people wanting some task done, but to lazy to do it themselves, I'm 
> pretty sure that the above scenario is what will happen... ;)


It's not a question of laziness. It's way, way beyond the capabilities 
of most people to start with the tools we have. An online system is only 
one model, but a good one I think. It could be, as several of us said, 
and installed client of a central database with a GUI that lets you 
customize the map and have it processed on your own machine. But for 
people to use it it would have to be packaged as a ready-to-use 
solution, not something where you have to construct a database from a 
planet file. People who make leaflets are graphic designers, not 
software engineers. It's hard, but try and think yourself into the shoes 
of someone who isn't a hacker, who doesn't really know what a database is.

I don't really understand your hostility. I thought the whole point of 
the project is to offer an alternative to the corporate, expensive, 
copyrighted maps. The kind of people those maps cut out are the small 
people for whom the map is an incidental, who just want to do a job 
which it is good to have a map to make it work, but who Ordnance Survey 
would charge more than the whole project would otherwise cost just for 
the map. Making the data accessible isn't enough IMO. It needs to be 
accessible in a form that ordinary people can use in the kinds o 
projects where it will shine.

David




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