[OSM-talk] Multiple OSM instances

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

80n wrote:
> I'm particularly interested in how it could be made easier for 
> contributors to handle the situation.  How will they know which OSM they 
> should contribute to?

I'd prefer if you chose the wording: "Which collaborative mapping 
platform..." - because there can only be one OSM project.

> Can they easily contribute to more than one instance?

In cases where they upload new stuff (i.e. something like an .osc with 
only self contained <create>s in it) that could easily be sent to 
multiple systems by an editor. But what if a new mapping platform pops 
up later and would like to have the user's content but cannot get it 
from the existing platforms? Maybe users should simply upload their 
stuff to a PD repository from which everyone else can then fetch it; 
that would make sure that there are no dead ends. (Eg if I today upload 
by stuff to an ODbL platform and a CC-BY-SA platform but tomorrow a PD 
platform opens which I also want to support - how will I do that 
technically?)

> I'm also interested in what can be done to make it easier to combine 
> content from multiple OSM instances.  Suppose one OSM instance has 
> better content for Australia, while another has better content for 
> India.

An, albeit small, first step could be to implement a map browser with 
OpenLayers that allows you to set your own private set of tile sources 
for various areas (e.g. use Google for the US, use CommonMap for 
Australia, use OSM for everything else).

Bye
Frederik