On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Tim Schaub <tsch...@opengeo.org> wrote: > Hey Andreas, > > I want to clarify that I think the work you did on the GoogleNG layer was > great. The words I used in the email below and on the ticket are really > just an indirect rephrasing of the message from the Google Maps Product > Manager - and I don't want it to come across as message direct from me. > > From our perspective (using OpenLayers), we want nothing but tiles. It is > extra overhead to pull in a complete mapping API. Since we can't completely > control the user interaction by wrapping another mapping API, we end up with > some awkward interactions. Your use of the (well documented) getTile method > was an excellent way to get what we want. And I know you made every effort > to honor the terms of service, with particular focus on displaying their > copyright information. It all felt like a great solution. > > From Google's perspective (I'm imagining here), they want complete control > over the mapping interface. I can imagine that at some point they'll want > to drop clickable business icons in there for advertisers - or something > similar. They also work hard to provide a very slick user experience with > animation and the like. I'm sure that just as much as we don't like seeing > our overlays looking sloppy with their tiles, they don't like seeing their > tiles look sloppy with our map interaction. > > I don't want to say that the two are completely incompatible, but I'm sure > others would agree that OpenLayers is better suited for use with providers > that allow direct access to tiles. Using OpenLayers with Bing tiles, OSM > tiles from MapQuest or openstreetmap.org, and other similar providers is a > better match in my opinion. > > We've gotten some generous support from a few sponsors recently (see > http://openlayers.org/sponsorship/ and more details in upcoming weeks). My > hope is that we can dedicate some funds to improving (among other things) > our own user interaction, including nicer animation on zooming and panning. > This is somewhat unrelated, but my point is that I hope we can continue > improving what OpenLayers does best and ideally not invest too much in > trying to integrate with a black box over which we have little control. > > That said, it's an obvious win if OpenLayers can work with Google Maps in a > way that satisfies all parties.
Nice response Tim. I agree with you on all points. Andreas, you did a great job on GoogleNG, and greatly improved the general knowledge on that topic. Thank you. -- Eric Lemoine Camptocamp France SAS Savoie Technolac, BP 352 73377 Le Bourget du Lac, Cedex Tel : 00 33 4 79 44 44 96 Mail : eric.lemo...@camptocamp.com http://www.camptocamp.com _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list d...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/openlayers-dev
