Hi all,
The OSMF Board wants to facilitate and support improving
infrastructure. During the Microgrants process, there were proposals
that didn’t make it, but would together be a good pilot for a “OSM
infrastructure” process, to learn how supporting osm infrastructure
projects works well.
The OSMF Board wants to fund a limited number of projects proposed by
trusted long-term volunteers whose work we know and enjoy. We have
selected the osm2pgsql and Potlatch microgrant proposals, and have a
new proposal from Nominatim.
In the long term, we want to re-activate the Engineering Working
Group (EWG) by making it a place for decision making, project
guidance and budget management for such projects.
The Board would like your feedback on these three specific
infrastructure projects:
Nominatim
Nominatim is the geocoding software that powers openstreetmap.org
and many other apps and websites. Sarah wants to work on:
finishing the localization efforts (improve address computation for
different countries, localized address output)
making the software more user-friendly (reduce the number of
programming languages by at least two, move side-projects into
separate repos, reorganise the code so that Nominatim can become an
Ubuntu package, docs, docs, docs)
The full proposal is at
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Nominatim_project_2020-07
Potlatch 2
Potlatch 2 used to be the default editor before iD took the relay.
While usage is declining, it’s still
used by 2500 (1.4%) users who did 10 million (1.2%) changes in 2020.
Potlatch is built in Flash, which browsers will retire by the end of
the year. Richard wants to adapt Potlatch 2 to the AIR platform so
users who still rely on it can continue to use it.
The full proposal is at
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Microgrants/Microgrants_2020/Proposal/Potlatch_2_for_desktop
osm2pgsql
osm2pgsql loads OpenStreetMap data into databases suitable for
applications like rendering into maps, geocoding with Nominatim, or
general analysis. It is used on openstreetmap.org
and in many other places.
While there has been constant paid and volunteer work on osm2pgsql,
large scale architecture changes to pay off historical technical debt
are needed to tackle long term challenges, and make future changes
easier.
Jochen wants to work on:
Hosting documentation on osm2pgsql.org
Rethinking the output of the program to make it more concise and
useful
Tackling the refactoring and cleanup of the “middle” code.
Ongoing maintenance as needed
Other work from the road map as time permits
The original budget and scope were limited by the microgrant
framework. The current project goes beyond that, and addresses open
issues and potential improvements further and better.
The proposal is at
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql_project_2020-07
Thank you and happy mapping
Guillaume, for the OSMF board
