The company Demis in the Netherlands sells software for a map
server and also runs a demo on their own site. The map data for
this demo have been collected from public domain sources, and the
company doesn't claim any copyright for the generated maps. The
maps are not the very best, but good enough for many purposes.
Some maps of this origin are already at Wikimedia Commons, e.g.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Hrusica-in-contex--raw.png
and have been used for further processing, e.g.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LocationArno.PNG
I developed a simple tool that makes it easier to find the right
map, and then I uploaded two dozens of them to
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain_maps_from_demis.nl
However, the people at Demis are concerned about a "Slashdot
effect" that might overburden their map server if everybody starts
to use this tool. They would prefer if somebody could buy the
Demis software and run their own server. Unfortunately, the map
server only runs on Microsoft Windows.
Does anybody have a Demis server running already, that I can use
for my tool? There are many WMS-compliant servers out there, but
most have very fuzzy or complicated copyright restrictions.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se
