Re: [Talk-us] Standard (mapnik) toolchain/processes: can we teach these better?
I appreciate Simon's response that it seems that the really coolish (people, processes...) happen in what often seems like a bubble: that is exactly what I was referring to. It's like the Cool Kids have their insider club, a world of their own, THEN there are The Rest of Us. The +1 responses I got indicate I'm not the only one who feels this way. Again, I don't think Andy and the other clockmakers are a secret society -- indeed I have written a few emails to Andy personally and he has very kindly responded to my pointed questions with aplomb and grace, so I see no ill will being harbored, nor does it seem he/they wish to remain in the shadows (if they do, please remedy that!). But how they document their processes might either be done more openly, or just more, period. Especially the why, beforehand and decision-making part of it. Maybe they just need to point to comprehensive block diagrams or something loosely resembling the guts of OSM for Dummies that The Rest of Us can easily find and digest. I realize this is a bit of a wish, but I think it is a high-value effort that would pay dividends in the near future: such sunshine in a project like ours seems a bit overdue, actually. Simon's description of future wishes for what can realistically be achieved with Standard rendering is excellent, and again, very much appreciated. I crave conversations about OSM like this. I just wish there were a better method to pull it out of the greater/wider knowledge of OSM than by a grumpy talk-us post complaining about what amounts to a poor map to how our map works. I also appreciate Martin's +1 about this lightweight way to push such information out to our contributors...(yet we) haven't developed a culture of actively informing before the fact. YES! EXACTLY! Let us endeavor to do exactly this. And Thank You, Martin, for the Wochennotiz. I have recently discovered the Weekly OSM Summary, which feels like a good start in this direction: like a small newsletter about people in OSM and the technical, social and interesting things they are doing RIGHT NOW in the project. This can only help gear up the inevitable even more questions than it answers. Now, we just need a forum (wiki pages? not really the best venue) where we can discuss such things. In my opinion, this is a critically missing component of a rich and vibrant project like OSM. I like our Help forum, with its interactive feel, I just wish there were a place we might discover intentions of what the future will bring: THAT seems to be the missing component. Simon did just that, but it felt like I was tugging on wild horses to learn it. In the hobby of amateur/ham radio, the usually older fellows who just know everything that you could talk to at a meet or on the air are called Elmers. I know Elmers exist in OSM, I just don't want to bother them with every little question, patient as they usually are in answering each one I might allow to rise high enough to be worthy of asking them. If you are an Elmer, and have the time to spare, please help our community develop a way to share your deeper knowledge, feeding the cravings of intermediates like me looking to grow into more advanced contributors. If you are such a growing contributor (and who isn't?!) please help us to channel our questions and thirst for specific knowledge into better sub-communities of sharing, especially the one regarding future directions of our project. Thank you to everybody who read and participated in this thread! SteveA California ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Standard (mapnik) toolchain/processes: can we teach these better?
On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 2:24 PM, stevea stevea...@softworkers.com wrote: I appreciate Simon's response that it seems that the really coolish (people, processes...) happen in what often seems like a bubble: that is exactly what I was referring to. It's like the Cool Kids have their insider club, a world of their own, THEN there are The Rest of Us. [ ... ] Pssst. Hey, You. You over there feeling left out. Want to know the secret to joining the cool kids? The secret is, you're already a cool kid. Disappointed? Don't be. You're already one of a small percentage of the world population who knows how to improve their local geo data and share it through OpenStreetMap. Think that isn't a select group? Think again. Only 30 - 50% of those who think they might like to contribute by signing up, actually contribute their first changeset. Only a few thousand people per day contribute, out of a planet of 7 billions. Pretty cool. Want to be even cooler? Become a coder of some sort. Contribute code to one or more OpenStreetMap-related software projects. You think mappers are a select group? They are. Now let's count coders who contribute on a daily basis. It isn't a few thousand per day. More like a few dozen[1]. And those are divided among dozens of projects. So pick a project that interests you; any one you like. Rendering, storage, UI, translations, accessibility, web site, QA, anything at all in the huge and varied OpenStreetMap tool chain and contribute. - find a long outstanding bug and check to see if it is (still) reproducible. - write some documentation for a beginner. - improve performance. - test a patch on different hardware. - triage a new bug. - compare some similar applications and write a review. Or even pick a project that you think needs to do more outreach, and help it do that outreach. Follow their project communication channels, and translate their bug reports, feature requests and design discussions into something suitable for a wider audience, then publish it to the appropriate wider comms channels. Learn more about what interests you. Share what you learn with others. An OpenStreetMap tag line from some of the early mapping party banners read, OpenStreetMap.org It's fun. It's free. You can help. [1] /me waves hands to distract from wild guess number. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] ODBL for Spatial Analysis
On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 11:40 AM, William Morris wboyk...@geosprocket.com wrote: Please let me know if I should direct this at a different list, but I have a basic question about the implications of the ODBL: OSM is brimming with great POIs and network features; I'd like to use some of these categories to answer broad questions like How far is this customer from the nearest park/school/whatever? Unfortunately, I'm not precisely sure of my legal obligation once I've answered that question. Specifically, would I be required to contribute the location of the customer back to OSM? If not, does that still hold when I upscale it to millions of customers? Thanks for the assistance, in any case. I know this is a somewhat contentious issue for the community, and I'd rather not make any assumptions. ODbL isn't contentious among OpenStreetMap contributors at all. We've all agreed to ODbL as a matter of course, in getting our contributor accounts. Sounds like you've been mislead by somebody with a bone to pick. Ignore them. :-) The right mailing list for license-realted questions or discussions is legal-talk@[1] On the face of your question, I would be surprised if OpenStreetMap would want to know the current location of an individual. That seems to fly in the face of the respect for individual privacy that OpenStreetMap demonstrates. I've presumed that your customer is a person, as they go about their day. That presumption could be way off base. It could go the other way, I suppose. If your customer is a business or POI that isn't included in OpenStreetMap, well then, yes OpenStreetMap would like that data. But again, you should have this discussion on legal-talk@. [1] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
