[OSM-talk] Milestone

[Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)]

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>Sent: 29 July 2008 12:30 AM
>To: Talk Openstreetmap
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Milestone
>
>Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) wrote:
>
>> Steve, you and everyone else whose worked hard on the cartography
>> aspects of
>> the Mapnik layer deserve a big pat on the back. But your note clearly
>> demonstrates that we really should not have the Mapnik stylesheet
>> maintained
>> and managed by one or two people.
>
>Well, there was a discussion on IRC today among some of the T at H chaps
>along the lines of "what we really need is a benevolent dictator, like
>the Mapnik stylesheet has". I've got a lot of sympathy with that -
>most of the reason the Mapnik layer looks so cool is because it's
>driven by one person with a clear vision and genuine cartographic
>skill, rather than "ooh, I want to see pound shops on the map, let me
>add my nice MS Paint icon".
>
>(For the avoidance of doubt I'm not accusing t at h of this, but I've
>seen enough committee-designed maps that do look like an utter
>bollocks.)
>
>> I'm really wondering if it wouldn't be a good time to get a separate
>> project
>> kicked off that's separate from OSM core. One that is specifically
>> aimed at
>> developing methods of layering and filtering the OSM data to produce
>> customisable maps. It's clear there are loads of people that want to
>> put
>> their oar in on it and maybe taking it out of a core OSM function
>> might free
>> up ideas and development. Obviously new and cool ideas can get
>> incorporated
>> back at OSM render central but at least having cartography development
>> outside of central control would stir up the pot and take some of
>> the heat
>> out of the issue within OSM itself.
>>
>> I assume the big problem doing this is getting suitable bandwidth
>> for a tile
>> server?
>
>Amazon EC2/S3.
>
>With a readymade image containing an OSM rendering toolchain - Mapnik,
>osm2pgsql and TileCache - plus some instructions on the wiki, we'd
>have a "roll your own cartography kit". A WYSIWYG stylesheet editor
>would be the icing on the cake but not necessary at the start. I am
>way out of my depth here technically, but wouldn't that be so, so cool?
>

+1, very cool and something I'd try my hand at. So how might we kick
something off, even if it's a bit too challenging for some of us, me
included?

Suggestions welcome.

Cheers

Andy