[Maps-l] Where we are now on getting OpenStreetMap into Wikipedia and what we need to do

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

Hello there. This is a quick status update on the project to get
OpenStreetMap maps into Wikipedia and on the Wikimedia/OpenStreetMap
toolserver setup. For those that don't know what it's all about we're:

  * Setting up a testing platform (ptolemy & ortelius) to serve OSM
maps in Wikipedia which can be rolled into production
  * Setting up a toolserver (cassini) which interested parties can use
to write tools that use OSM data. And combine it with Wikimedia data
if they want.

Here's an (outdated!) wiki page with some more info:

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap

And here's a recent talk I gave at Wikimania discussing the current status:

   http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:143

Until now we only had 1/3 machines active & accessible due to various
combinations of waiting for hardware, people being busy and it being
unclear who actually got access to those machines that I won't go
into.

That one machine was the nascent WMOSM Toolserver Cassini. I set up a
prototype multilingular rendering (since ptolemy and ortelius weren't
available at the time) which you can see here:

   http://cassini.toolserver.org/tile-browse/

What we need to to currently is:

 * Admins to set up ptolemy / ortelius so that they replicate the DB /
mirror tiles
 * Get interested users/developers to *use* cassini for their tools so
we can get neat stuff like the multilingular-country-list
(http://cassini.toolserver.org/~mazder/multilingual-country-list/).
Sign up here: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Account_request
 * Cassini also needs some admin love
 * Work on this buglist (and more bugs) to get OSM into Wikipedia:
http://tinyurl.com/nv2sap

I did most of this on Cassini (see setup notes:
http://tinyurl.com/mbblj3) but I have limited time on it (especially
until Christmas) and system administration isn't my strong suit. So
unless we get other people to help this project is going to go
*slooowly* and you won't have OSM on Wikipedia until 2010.

Before WM2009 we had the unfortunate problem of interested parties
needing to do the above not getting access due to the issues above.
However the machines are up *now* and during WM2009 uncertainties
about who could grant access were finally solved (brion will be
dictator).

So, any potential admins for ptolemy and ortelius will have to:

 1. Be qualified & motivated

Preferably someone who's worked with the OSM toolchain or is willing
to learn. If you're maintaining your own ad-hoc rendering somewhere
and are running out of server space you'll probably be motivated to
get this working sooner.

 2. Reveal their name & address to the Wikimedia foundation

That's a requirement Wikimedia requires of all server administrators.

 3. Agree to Wikimedia's privacy policy

URL: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy

ptolemy and ortelius are otherwise distinct servers on the Wikimedia
network so this amounts to basically not being silly and running a
Quake III server on them, or nmap-ing the Internet.

Cassini is more sensitive and harder to gain access to since root
admins on Cassini have access to private data about Wikimedia users
(e.g. raw database access, login cookies and so on).

But in both cases we should be able to give elevated non-Unix-root
privileges. All of this pending approval by Wikimedia of course.