It was really great meeting everyone last Saturday. Maning essentially gave
a good and comprehensive report.
A few other points:
A mapping party was mentioned. Somewhere accessible from Metro Manila (where
most people are) and that is not covered by Yahoo's aerial imagery is a good
place. I suggested Tagaytay. Sta. Rosa might also be good.
The interest of real estate people in OSM is based on using the data/map as
a base map for providing vicinity information for property listings. OSM is
not meant for doing cadastral surveys so that's not what they are after. I
think the idea is to have real estate listings like what U.S. realtors do
with street maps of the U.S. in Google Maps.
Yellowasp.com was mentioned as having a supposedly good Flash-based map of
Makati. I checked it out and I'm not too impressed. It's IS usable for
finding buildings in the Makati CBD though.
Jim gave a short account of his mapping Malapascua Island in Cebu.
The government needs to get its act together in providing an up-to-date and
integrated geographical information of the Philippines, especially
concerning the problem of real estate appraisal (where the local appraisal
often conflicts with the national appraisal). The Philippine Standard
Geographic Code of the National Statistical Coordination Board was
mentioned, but it not enough.
That's some of the other points I remember. Maybe somebody can fill in more
details.
~ Eugene / seav
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:17 AM, maning sambale
emmanuel.samb...@gmail.comwrote:
Hi,
Some report on the meet-up last Saturday (20090207) at Grappas in
Greenbelt 3.
7 people attended the meet-up ( a geospatial researcher, a computer
hardware engineer, an IT/real property consultant, an IT security
consultant and his relation, a travel site/webcam/python hacker, and a
java programmer ). Mostly geeky (not the looks) but all are free map
lover.
The pizza was good and the micro-brewed beer was excellent.
On the way to Makati, I turned-on my GPS to test my new update of
Openstreetmap data for Garmin. The data for EDSA is quite good for my
GPS, I did found a few bugs (missing flyover). Just in front of
Grappas is the PowerMac center so I opened openstreetbugs and reported
the missing flyover I passed by ;).
The transcript below some of the things discussed (please fill in
missing things):
On forming an organization:
We had a previous mail discussion on should we have a formal
organization representing OSM Philippines so this was a main
discussion point in Grappas. Basically two points were raised:
1. There is a need to create a legal personality for OSM Philippines
to be able to represent the group to various institutions and to be
able to access funding support if needed. There are a 3 options to
choose from: as a foundation, as a non-profit or as an NGO. The
minimum requirements would be a SEC registration and an annual
reporting. The pros for this is, we as a group can engage in formal
tie-ups, sponsorships and project grants. If we can access such
opportunities, we can greatly expand OSM Philippines advocacy.
2. Do we need one already (as in ngayon na)? Creating a formal org
needs a lot of work specifically paper work. Is there anybody here
committed to take on such task? Many of us would rather just do
mapping (fun) than do organizing and coordinating (not so fun, but
maybe fun to others). Judging by the
number of people in the meet-up, we guess just not yet.
But the prospect of having an org is a good proposition and we are leaving
the
options open. We hope someone can take on the challenge and help us.
As matter of urgency, one of us shared an incident where a local
volunteer group just doesn't see a need to formally organize and yet
after six months, they need a formal org to attend and represent the
group to some event.
On the the GPStoGO program:
I brought the GPS units with me to show to the group. Many thanks to
those who pitched in and share the load to cover the custom duties.
Currently, 3 units are with me. One is with Michael Cole. Anybody
can request a reservation via this mailinglist and the wikipage:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Philippines/GPStogo_program
Possible collaboration with the realtors and property
brokers/appraisers:
One attendee is a member of a federation or real property
appraisers/brokers (can't remember the exact name of the
federation). He raised the problem with geographic data of Phil. real
properties and sees an oppurtunity to collaborate with OSM. I see
this as a good opportunity for the group and perhaps we coud think of
ways we can help them. No specifics for now, but I hope we can discuss
them here.
On helping new mappers:
A concern was raised on how we can help new mappers. I am seeing a
lot of contributors lately and we should make it a point to help
newbies. An important lesson was while some of the little things maybe
obvious to seasoned
