[OSM-talk] Open Sea Chart - I don't get it

[Frederik Ramm]

Valent,

valent.turkovic at gmail.com wrote:
> http://wn.com/27c3_Safety_on_the_Open_Sea_en
> 
> I really don't get this guy, why is he starting new project when
> OpenSeaMap is already there?!?

I'm not sure he is really "starting a new project". The author has been 
active on osm-talk a few months ago:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2010-August/052443.html

Maybe he cares to explain. The "list of lights" he's talking about is, I 
believe, planned to be imported into OSM by some people. (Personally I'm 
not sure it should - generally we should only import data that people 
can sensibly edit.) I know that OpenSeaMap people are also working on 
somehow collecting and providing bathymetry data (sea depth) which is 
something he also talks about. This is however not something that is 
likely to land in OSM proper as it is more a raster thing.

A recurring point in his talk is also that lat/lon/depth based on one 
chart datum is different from lat/lon/depth based on another chart 
datum, something I thought everybody knew but maybe not.

A topic he also touches is reliability of data - without actually 
suggesting a solution. This is something that the OpenSeaMap folks have 
brought up very early on but they haven't solved it either. I know 
there's a guy - unrelated to OpenSeaMap - who has written a thesis or so 
about a project to digitally sign OSM data for reliability (see e.g. 
http://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/applications/editors/josm/plugins/trustosm/) 
but that doesn't pop up in the talk even though it would have been a 
good fit, what with all the crypto geeks present at 27c.

It is hard to say whether this is a talk of an OpenSeaMap activist or a 
talk of someone who wants to do his own thing - as I said, maybe it is 
best if he explains. Historically, OpenSeaMap has not been very open, 
with processes, discussions and decisions taking place by a few people 
behind closed doors; the result is that most of us know very little 
about who's in OpenSeaMap, what they do, and where they're heading. I 
believe they have a Google group or something.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"