Sunday, March 28, 2010

The integration of #OpenStreetMap and #MediaWiki needs project management

One of the most eagerly awaited software projects is the integration of OSM in Wikipedia. Having support for high quality maps will provide such an obvious improvement it is actually a no-brainer. When you consider how much effort has gone into bringing maps to Wikipedia; the German chapter investing in it, the time of at least two developers over the years and maps integration as Google Summer of Code projects ...

नीरज अग्रवाल
This year, another student wants to make his mark on the map of the Google Summer of Code. Neeraj Agarwal. Neeraj is from India and if there is one country that will poses a challenge to get all its villages, towns and cities on the Wikipedia map, it is India. Not only because of there being so many of them but also because of there being so many Wikipedias in the languages of the Indian subcontinent.

I had a word with several people interested and involved in the Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap integration and for me it is clear that many people want this but that all the effort is not managed into one cohesive effort. An effort that brings the many interested parties together, an effort that priorities what needs to be done. An effort that coordinates what it takes to get a product out.

At this stage we need the effort of Neeraj, we need our bugmeister to assess the existing code, we need to get an initial product out. Once we have it out, we can make it pretty.
Thanks,
      GerardM

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