I've been waiting to follow up on this until
I got official clarification
on WMF's position for using the Apple's framework…
Good news, WMF legal has no privacy/legal concerns with using the MapKit
framework - so we will be able to proceed with implementing map features
using the official iOS SDK!
This should make it much easier to develop this feature.
On Sat, Jun 13, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Ulf Buermeyer <ulf(a)ijure.org> wrote:
Jon,
thanks for following up!
Just in order to share what we discussed yesterday let me briefly
summarize:
Last year I submitted a pull request that introduces a simple map view
to display places referenced by coordinates mentioned in an article
(replacing the somewhat clumsy "look, there are 34 or so map providers
on the internet" page). The code was technically fine but not merged in
so far for policy reasons as MapViews on iOS display non-free content &
hit Apple's servers.
So here are the options to move forward:
* WMF may revisit the issue and approve use of Apple maps
+ could be rolled out almost immediately
- non-free content
- privacy issue?
- community may be fond of that map selection page?
* the MapView could be quickly tweaked to show nearby places
(accompanying the current nearby list)
+ quick to implement
- non-free content
- privacy issue?
I have also coded an OpenStreetMap layer that can be displayed in an
ordinary iOS MapView but replacing Apple map content so it could be used
in both scenarios mentioned above to avoid hitting Apple servers.
+ free content
- some time to implement (currently running in one of my apps but not
yet transformed into a separate component)
As for the OSM tiles to display in said layer, there are once again
three options:
* set up WMF tile rendering infrastructure
+ control over tile design
+ download from WMF servers -> no privacy issue
- HUGE impact on engineering & operations resources
* cache official OSM tiles
+ download from WMF servers -> no privacy issue
+ small impact on operations, little engineering
- some tile expiration logic / tweaking needed
- need to consult with admins:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy
* proxy official OSM tiles
+ download from WMF servers -> no privacy issue
+ small impact on operations, practically no engineering
- OSM guys from the UK may have concerns regarding load on their
infrastructure
- need to consult with admins:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy
Hope that helps, happy to help.
Best, Ulf
On 12/06/15 18:08, Jon Katz wrote:
Hi All,
Tilman brought Ulf (copied) to the office today and it was great and
energizing to sit down with him and hear his thoughts on maps and
nearby
options. As Tilman said earlier, Ulf has already
done some work in
this
area and is happy to help out. He also has some
ideas about how we
could make things scale. I think the only thing holding him back right
now is not knowing where he can add the most value.
I encourage Corey, Dmitry, Yuri and Max, in particular, to include Ulf
in any conversations about this moving forward.
-J
On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Tilman Bayer <tbayer(a)wikimedia.org
<mailto:tbayer@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Hi all,
as it happens, Ulf (CCed, the author of last year's GitHub pull
request
<https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-ios-wikipedia/pull/3> that
Brian
mentioned; he is the developer of a fairly
popular geolocation iOS
app <http://mapalarm.net/wp/> and runs his own OSM tileserver) is
in
SF again currently; we'll have lunch
early next week. He would be
delighted to come by the office and chat with people working in
this
area. (IIRC Max, Monte and Brion already met
him last year, which
led to that pull request.) Would some of the apps/maps people be
interested in talking to him around 2pm on Monday, say?
I showed Wikiminiatlas <https://wma.wmflabs.org/> to Ulf yesterday
and he would be excited to use it to update his iOS app patch for a
proof of concept that's in line with the privacy policy. I guess he
could also use the new Karta server instead for something more
production-like.
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Yuri Astrakhan
<yastrakhan(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:yastrakhan@wikimedia.org>>
wrote:
Disclaimer: I do not know much about the specifics of the iOS
implementation, so can only speak about overall approach and
possible concerns.
* Per WMF privacy policy, we cannot use outside servers if that
exposes our user's browsing behaviour. Thus any outside servers
must be proxied to be consumable by our users.
* OSM data is not the same as the tiles people see - there is
data (clone of OSM db), there is data tiles (vector tiles) that
only contain the features we try to show on a specific zoom
level for that area, and there is rendering of that data as an
image. From what I have learnt so far, most of the OSM-based
stacks implement "raster tiles" - all images are pre-rendered
as
PNGs for speed.
* We are trying to switch to vector based approach, where tiles
are stored as data, and converted to image on request, either
by
the server or by the user's browser.
Which means that if you
have retina screen, the image will be rendered twice the
regular
size, and will be much crispier. This
also means that you can
rotate it on your device, or dynamically change the language.
* I suspect, and please update me on this if you know the
details, that the built-in iOS implementation can only handle
images (raster) from the 3rd party (WMF). Mapbox's vector
format
is gaining in acceptance, and IIRC, has
been selected by OSM
community in general for the future development, but I am not
sure iOS supports it natively.
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:24 PM, Brian Gerstle
<bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:bgerstle@wikimedia.org>>
wrote:
Agree with Corey, I've mentioned this elsewhere
<
https://www.mail-archive.com/mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg03395.html
,
but it's important to note that as of iOS 6
<https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2012/10/02/apple-maps/>,
Apple has been (and still appears to be
<
http://applemapsmarketing.com/2014/11/open-street-map-apple-maps/>)
using OSM for map data. I don't
know the rationale behind
why we need our own OSM servers, but does that rationale
also prevent our iOS app from using Apple-provided OSM
data?
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 4:05 PM, Corey Floyd
<cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:cfloyd@wikimedia.org>>
wrote:
Any reason to import a 3rd party library for
functionality built in to the iOS SDK? Seems like work
to explore/integrate a dependency where none is needed.
Without this extra work, this is something that can be
built in < 1 day.
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:01 PM, Brian Gerstle
<bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:bgerstle@wikimedia.org
>
wrote:
Cool, looks like mapbox has an iOS SDK
<https://www.mapbox.com/mapbox-ios-sdk/>. Is
there
somewhere that the progress
on funding is being
tracked? Put another way, where should I direct
PM,
design, etc. to get this
prioritized? Also, I
think
it'd be worth it to ship
this to a percentage of
users to (further) validate the feature.
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 3:56 PM, Yuri Astrakhan
<yastrakhan(a)wikimedia.org
<mailto:yastrakhan@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Current state of affairs:
https://karta.wmflabs.org/static/ is up and
running, and should have all the data soon. It
uses mapbox stack, which means that it
generates
vector data tiles, and
creates a PNG tiles on
the fly. This also means that in a few days,
you
will be able to view
WebGL based maps there too
- rendered on the browser, with multiple
styles,
and rotatable.
The community needs this service, and has
already built a large number of amazing
projects
even without the
production-level vector
service. Examples include
* atlas-style drill-down map
<
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/de/map/wikipedia-clustermap_36725>
(umap, see more info
<http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/>)
* Wikidata-based map of pages by class
<
https://tools.wmflabs.org/wp-world/wikidata/superclasses.php?lang=en>gt;,
e.g. all rollercoasters
<
https://tools.wmflabs.org/wiwosm/osm-on-ol/kml-on-ol.php?lang=en&uselan…
.
* There is an amazing presentation
<
https://tools.wmflabs.org/wp-world/docs/ICC2013-WP-OSM-white.pdf>
(pdf) by Kolossos (Tim
Adler), that gives many
more examples of the community-built map
services and projects (OpenOffice format
<
https://tools.wmflabs.org/wp-world/docs/ICC2013-WP-OSM-white.odp>)
P.S. Tomasz, it's Yuri, not Yuvi, and don't
blame IRC auto-complete :)
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 7:57 PM, Max Semenik
<maxsem.wiki(a)gmail.com
<mailto:maxsem.wiki@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hey - yes, we're workig on serving map
tiles. Both raster and MapBox vectors. Our
current demo implementation is
at
https://karta.wmflabs.org/static/ -
only
raster tiles ATM,
vectors coming in 1-2
days. The main problem, however, is
budgeting - yet if we get very little
hardware, concentrating on maps for apps
might even be a reasonable option as apps
traffic might be lower than if we exposed
maps to all web users. Getting no bugdet at
all is also a possible outcome, though.
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing
list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
--
EN Wikipedia user
page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
IRC: bgerstle
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
--
Corey Floyd
Software Engineer
Mobile Apps / iOS
Wikimedia Foundation
--
EN Wikipedia user
page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
IRC: bgerstle
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
_______________________________________________
reading-wmf mailing list
reading-wmf(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:
reading-wmf(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
--
Corey Floyd
Software Engineer
Mobile Apps / iOS
Wikimedia Foundation