[Foundation-l] New project proposal : wikimaps

Thu Jan 20 21:56:04 UTC 2005

Daniel Mayer schrieb:

>--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>  
>
>>I hereby request this as a new project (we already do have wikimaps.org, 
>>right?).
>>    
>>
>
>I think this is a bit premature. Wikimaps should be as human editable as
>possible and I can't really figure out how to do that with the implementation
>you presented (and I work as a full time GIS specialist).  
>  
>
I'll write up a documentation. Chances are, it is too simple for you; 
used to GIS software, you'd think "it *has* to be more complicated than 
that!" :-)

>Much more time is needed to develop something workable, IMO. Did you contact
>the person I mentioned in one of previous posts on this? 
>  
>
But it *is* workable, at least for our purposes. That doesn't mean the 
software is finished and ready to go "as is"; there's probably a whole 
army of bugs waiting in the wings.

The one you mentioned (yeah, names...) is, IIRC, the one who presented 
his own mapping software at the developers conference at 21C3. It was 
that very presentation which inspired me to write my own. (Not that the 
maps were that bad; the implementation was /makes gagging sound/, and I 
couldn't see a wiki interface to enter data anywhere)

>There is also a lot that goes into forming a new project. One cannot just ask
>and have it happen anymore. 
>  
>
Well, if I don't ask, nothing's gonna happen at all, right? Right?? How 
many of my (and other peoples) projects keep rotting in CVS and other 
unspeakable places, because they didn't get the necessary push? I 
stopped counting.

I invested quite some brain-power into this one; and as far as I can 
judge my own 'ware objectively, it strikes me as both very useful and 
thought-through, despite the (relatively!) short time I've been working 
on it. But since presentation and persistance (read: creation of Klingon 
wikipedia and the like) have become, as you imply yourself, more 
important than writing code, I'm now bugging everyone as much as I can, 
in the vague hope something good comes out of it this time, and my work 
will not be in vain yet again.

And I am not suggesting some weird far-fetched project out of the blue 
sky here. We actually have a *reserved domain* for this! I'm just the 
first one to come up with a real implementation, one that's actually 
working!
The software is there, examples are there, and I'm adding new (alas very 
rough) data as we speak (sorry: mail) . What else do you expect? Me to 
finish the whole world data set before I get approval? :-)

>>IMHO a separate, single server would be best suited for this. With a lot 
>>of data, map generation will slow down, and it should not slow down 
>>other projects in turn. Also, due to the speed of the wikimedia projects 
>>(or the lack thereof), I propose waiting for the next batch of servers 
>>to be installed before doing this.
>>    
>>
>
>We have very serious server/performance issues to deal with first. 
>  
>
Yes, I know. That's *the whole point* of the paragraph you quoted! Sorry 
if I wasn't clear, here it goes again, in keywords:
1. Wait for new servers
2. Wikipedia faaaaaast!
3. Wikimaps
4. Profit! (oh, wait...)

>So we must live within the world that is presented to us and wait for the day
>when that world attains some sanity. Until then we need to protect our work
>through the use of a copyleft license. 
>  
>
Agreed; we might have to wait a *very* long time for that, though :-(

Magnus

P.S.: Glancing over this mail again, I might annoy someone or the other 
with it. Sorry!