[OSM-talk] Build your own osm.org (was Re: New technology ...)

[Richard Fairhurst]

Lester Caine wrote:
> Note that I'm not saying that the main map should change - this is 
> mobile technology use, but personally I WOULD like to have 
> the option to select the old style layout. It's not fundamental to 
> how the map works - it's only a style sheet, and we could have 
> several - including mobile centric ones? What rattles my cage is 
> when someone else changes things that I'm naturally used to when 
> there is no need to FORCE me to change - just put an option to 
> select in!

You could have several different stylesheet options, but every time anyone
makes a simple code change to the site, it would then have to be tested
against each one. Just look at the unintentional collateral damage from the
recent changes (things like the search box not scrolling, text entry boxes
not resizing) and multiply that by several stylesheets.

We simply don't have enough developers for that. If you want it, you need to
find more developers. And I hate to say it, but these recent threads are not
really a very good way of saying "hey, developers, come and help OSM, you'll
be welcome here! We respect our developers!".


So is there a way through? Of course there is.

We have two on-site editors, iD and Potlatch. They do not do everything for
everyone. No-one expects them to. Instead, the people who want MOAR
STYLESHEETS (or moar zoombars, or moar tools, or whatever) use a separate
editor. It's called JOSM. You may have heard of it. :)

This is a great solution. It means power users get the tools they want,
without making the online editors utterly bamboozling to the newbie. It
means Java developers have an OSM project to get stuck into, even though the
main site is Rails. It doesn't impose extra burdens on the site development
team. And it's made possible because OSM is an open project with an open
API, and we positively encourage this sort of thing.

Why not do the same here? Get a few people together who want the zoom
bar/old stylesheets/whatever. Build a power user's mapping site. Use PHP or
whatever language you're comfortable with. Start small - just an instance
with the features you really need. But it could grow to have oodles more
tile layers, talk to the public OSRM API for routing, be tightly integrated
with JOSM, all the stuff that we can't expose on osm.org for QC/scaling
reasons but which would work fine on a more niche site. And if you have good
ideas, some might filter back to osm.org, just as JOSM features occasionally
pop up in P2 or iD.

cheers
Richard





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