Humanitarian OSM Team/Working groups/Technical/meeting 2012-04-05

First meeting of the HOT TWG which took place on IRC on Thu 10th May 2012

IRC logs

springmeyer: TWG! here we go

[07:01am] springmeyer: Hi everyone - if you are here for the Technical working group meeting...

[07:01am] pierzen joined the chat room.

[07:01am] springmeyer: here is a basic agenda:

[07:01am] pgiraud: hello all

[07:02am] springmeyer: Agenda

[07:02am] springmeyer: - raise hand if present, state name, and interests (in just a few words)

[07:02am] springmeyer: - What existing software tools has HOT sponsored or encouraged

[07:02am] springmeyer: - how can we best/better coordinate software development priorities for HOTOSM needs?

[07:02am] springmeyer: - What gaps exist in the current tools?

[07:02am] CGI112 joined the chat room.

[07:02am] springmeyer: so, I will start by introducing myself

[07:02am] CGI112 left the chat room.

[07:02am] CGI112 joined the chat room.

[07:02am] CGI112 left the chat room.

[07:03am] springmeyer: I'm Dane Springmeyer, on the board of hotosm, and excited to help coordinate and maximize the power of HOT through better software

[07:04am] springmeyer: others here for the meeting please introduce yourself

[07:04am] pgiraud: I'm Pierre GIRAUD, hotosm member, mainly involved in the development of the Tasking Manager

[07:04am] Firefishy joined the chat room.

[07:05am] harry-wood: I'm Harry Wood, also on the board of hotosm. Don't get much time to develop stuff, but if I did I'd make HOT stuff

[07:05am] IknowJoseph: hello, Joseph Reeves, interested in using HOT software, will largely be lurking as I'm supposed to at work.

[07:05am] harry-wood: Yeah ditto that. Supposed to be at work

[07:05am] springmeyer: lurking is just fine, jump in any time

[07:06am] _Matze_ joined the chat room.

[07:06am] springmeyer: IknowJoseph: and harry-wood - for future meetings would later in the day be better?

[07:06am] geohacker joined the chat room.

[07:06am] harry-wood: Well for europeans maybe

[07:07am] IknowJoseph: I'm not a developer, so I'd probably just lurk regardless of the time

[07:07am] • pgiraud is european too

[07:07am] springmeyer: okay, when I send out meeting notes from this meeting I will propose a slightly later time

[07:07am] • geohacker is not.

[07:07am] springmeyer: I'm west coast US, so this is pretty early for me

[07:07am] • Firefishy is African... Living in London town.

[07:08am] springmeyer: great, for those that just joined I will re-state agenda:

[07:08am] springmeyer: springmeyer: - raise hand if present, state name, and interests (in just a few words)

[07:08am] springmeyer: [07:02am] springmeyer: - What existing software tools has HOT sponsored or encouraged

[07:08am] springmeyer: [07:02am] springmeyer: - how can we best/better coordinate software development priorities for HOTOSM needs?

[07:08am] springmeyer: [07:02am] springmeyer: - What gaps exist in the current tools

[07:08am] • geohacker is in India. IST is Indian Stretchable Time.

[07:09am] springmeyer: geohacker: nice

[07:09am] springmeyer: geohacker: what are your main interests related to software and hot?

[07:09am] DennisL joined the chat room.

[07:10am] geohacker: springmeyer: I'm an independent consultant. and I help people to use maps.

[07:10am] springmeyer: geohacker: great, and you are Sajjad Anwar ?

[07:10am] geohacker: I work with NGOs in India to help them build geo infrastructure.

[07:10am] geohacker: springmeyer: yes!

[07:10am] pierzen: Pierre Béland, team member and interested in various aspect of HotOsm. EST Time schedule. Time is less a problem for me.

[07:11am] chippy joined the chat room.

[07:11am] harry-wood: perzen==Pierre Beland  !=the other pierre ….must try to remember that

[07:11am] jgc: J...G...C..., hotosm member, lurking while tracing in Tierralta

[07:12am] pgiraud: I'm still interested in working on the Tasking Manager, my will is to make it as easy to use as possible

[07:12am] springmeyer: pgiraud: great segway

[07:12am] springmeyer: great, so intros are wrapping up, now I'll move to recapping existing tools that HOT members are actively working on

[07:12am] geohacker: cool

[07:12am] springmeyer: 1) pgiraud's Tasking Manager - http://tasks.hotosm.org | https://github.com/pgiraud/OSMTM

[07:13am] springmeyer: many of us know and already love this tool, its in active use for HOT

[07:13am] springmeyer: from a top level I'm excited to see it has a healthy issue queue: https://github.com/pgiraud/OSMTM/issues

[07:13am] springmeyer: it is also linked off the new web site for HOT: http://hot.openstreetmap.org/get-involved

[07:14am] geohacker: neat

[07:14am] springmeyer: but we plan to have a "tools" page that will feature it and the others I'm about to cover

[07:14am] pgiraud: what does healthy mean?

[07:14am] springmeyer: so that new people that are interested in HOT will be able to quickly find code to contribute to

[07:14am] springmeyer: pgiraud: active, and long

[07:14am] harry-wood: hehe. I was wondering what healthy meant

[07:15am] springmeyer: and with as many closed tasks as open

[07:15am] geohacker: +1 to the tools page.

[07:15am] pgiraud: I recently got pull requests from a potential contributor

[07:15am] _Matze_ left the chat room.

[07:15am] springmeyer: geohacker: thx, this is on my plate for doing this week and I will sent out to the mailing list for review

[07:15am] springmeyer: pgiraud: nice. can you summarize briefly what the big next steps are for the tool?

[07:16am] pgiraud: no real road map, but many ideas that are still in my head

[07:17am] springmeyer: okay, good enough. I'll move on then to cover things quickly...

[07:17am] pgiraud: I tried to create a "draw your own area" feature to allow users to draw polygons

[07:17am] geohacker: pgiraud: I can write Python. Have used web.py and now building stuff using Flask.

[07:17am] springmeyer: 2) SDS-Server - https://github.com/hotosm/sds-server - a way to separately store private data tied to osm_id (works with JOSM plugin)

[07:17am] geohacker: i'll touch base the code and see what I can do

[07:18am] springmeyer: This tool was written by Geofabrik and used for the HOT indonesia project

[07:18am] springmeyer: since it deals with private data there is not a public instance, but the code is open

[07:19am] pgiraud: what does SDS mean ?

[07:19am] geohacker: okay.

[07:19am] springmeyer: "Separate DataStore"

[07:19am] springmeyer: name comes from the specific JOSM plugin it integrates with

[07:19am] harry-wood: back in a minute

[07:19am] springmeyer: harry-wood: k

[07:19am] harry-wood left the chat room. (Quit: Leaving.)

[07:20am] springmeyer: No actionable things on this tool for us as a group that I know of, but good to know it exists...

[07:20am] springmeyer: 3) - Exports tool - https://github.com/hotosm/hot-exports | http://hot-export.geofabrik.de - currently instance is specific to Haiti but has a lot of potential

[07:20am] springmeyer: also written by the talented guys at geofabrik. it accepts a bbox and pumped out data extracts in a ton of formats

[07:21am] springmeyer: This tool is very new, I encourage anyone interested to get it running locally

[07:22am] springmeyer: I also would like to encourage thinking around how it overlaps/complements other export tools - this is obviously a common thing

[07:22am] geohacker: so you basically create a new job, submit the bounding box. right?

[07:22am] springmeyer: yes

[07:23am] springmeyer: It was specifically designed for the mapping needs in haiti where very non-techical users needed frequent extracts

[07:23am] geohacker: okay.

[07:23am] billyirst joined the chat room.

[07:24am] pierzen: SDS Server https://github.com/hotosm/sds-server Description and More information link are not operational.

[07:24am] springmeyer: pierzen: great, I will look at fixing that, thank you

[07:25am] springmeyer: Any other questions about those tools?

[07:26am] geohacker: springmeyer: doesn't the hot-extract work for the whole planet now?

[07:26am] • geohacker tries

[07:26am] springmeyer: geohacker: I was not aware that it did. the tool certainly could but I think its only populated with haiti data

[07:26am] harry-wood joined the chat room.

[07:26am] springmeyer: that instance at least

[07:27am] springmeyer: So, that was my main list I wanted to cover today.

[07:27am] iandees joined the chat room.

[07:27am] springmeyer: Anything I missed?

[07:27am] pgiraud: maybe it's off topic, but is there any guideline about licenses for the tools?

[07:28am] springmeyer: pgiraud: great question

[07:28am] pgiraud: the tasking manager is currently NOT licensed

[07:28am] pgiraud: Kate already asked me about that

[07:28am] springmeyer: The hot board discussed this and felt like the next step

[07:29am] springmeyer: would be to discuss licensing on the mailing list

[07:29am] pgiraud: that's fine

[07:29am] springmeyer: to gather peoples thoughts

[07:29am] springmeyer: HOT tools so far have tended to be BSD licenced

[07:29am] pgiraud: I'm open to any proposal

[07:29am] springmeyer: but I think we should discuss as a group a bit

[07:29am] springmeyer: okay, great pgiraud

[07:30am] jgc: pgiraud, seeing that the tasking manager can export task tiles as a shapefile, I was wondering whether it would be possible to also import task boundaries as a shapefile ?

[07:30am] pgiraud: it should be really easy

[07:31am] jgc: This could be useful to share checking of, eg, Orbview3 images

[07:31am] jgc: great

[07:31am] pgiraud: don't hesitate to open an issue on that topic

[07:32am] springmeyer: pgiraud: at https://github.com/pgiraud/OSMTM/issues, yes?

[07:32am] jgc: ok

[07:32am] springmeyer: thanks jgc

[07:32am] springmeyer: so, let's move on to next agenda items

[07:32am] springmeyer: good starting topics for discussion I felt are:

[07:32am] geohacker: hmm Tasking Manager looks very interesting.

[07:32am] • geohacker clones.

[07:32am] springmeyer: - how can we best/better coordinate software development priorities for HOTOSM needs?

[07:32am] springmeyer: - What gaps exist in the current tools?

[07:33am] springmeyer: So, basically: how can we work together better and what should be the top priorities?

[07:34am] geohacker: sorry. I need to step out for a bit. back soon.

[07:34am] springmeyer: we have 30 minutes to discuss freely here, if you have the time, so share you thoughts and take off when you need to

[07:34am] springmeyer: geohacker: k, see you later

[07:34am] geohacker: springmeyer: I'll look up the log and respond.

[07:35am] springmeyer: okay, good

[07:35am] springmeyer: So, my feelings are that we need

[07:35am] springmeyer: a page at http://hot.openstreetmap.org like http://hot.openstreetmap.org/tools

[07:36am] springmeyer: that lists all the top tools and potential needs

[07:36am] pgiraud: can we say that using github is a good solution to work on code?

[07:36am] springmeyer: yes, I think so

[07:36am] springmeyer: my second thought is to do a better job

[07:36am] springmeyer: promoting and using this group: and that we get more people

[07:36am] springmeyer: er, copy paste error

[07:36am] springmeyer: this group: https://github.com/hotosm

[07:37am] pgiraud: I didn't know that this group existed

[07:37am] springmeyer: right, it was created but not used much yet

[07:37am] springmeyer: so it is a possibility to use more

[07:38am] harry-wood: Is it just a grouping of repos?

[07:39am] springmeyer: harry-wood: yes

[07:39am] springmeyer: I can add each of you as members now - what do you think?

[07:40am] harry-wood: yep. do it

[07:40am] • pgiraud agrees

[07:40am] pierzen: +1

[07:40am] harry-wood: I was imagining I might have to do some coding work to show up on the list

[07:40am] harry-wood: So we should/could add the tasking manager to this?

[07:41am] pgiraud: I think so

[07:41am] springmeyer: I would be supportive of that if pgiraud was open

[07:41am] pgiraud: I am

[07:41am] springmeyer: okay

[07:42am] pgiraud: what do I need to do?

[07:42am] springmeyer: can each of you state your github username?

[07:42am] springmeyer: (i realize it may be the same as IRC)

[07:42am] harry-wood: https://github.com/harry-wood

[07:42am] pgiraud: https://github.com/pgiraud

[07:43am] pierzen: https://github.com/pierzen

[07:44am] harry-wood: The thing I don't like about github is… it reveals just how much I talk about stuff and don't do anything

[07:44am] flavour: https://github.com/flavour awake now

[07:44am] jsanz left the chat room. (Quit: Saliendo)

[07:44am] pgiraud: harry-wood, talking is better than doing nothing

[07:44am] springmeyer: hey flavour - nice nic

[07:45am] Firefishy: https://github.com/Firefishy

[07:45am] springmeyer: flavour: great to have you, can you state your name and general interests?

[07:45am] flavour: Fran Boon, Sahana Eden lead developer

[07:45am] flavour: Interested in supporting Huamnaitarian Orgs

[07:45am] flavour: With Mapping tools

[07:45am] springmeyer: awesome, thanks

[07:45am] flavour: & Data

[07:46am] flavour: Work with IFRC, WFP, Oxfam, etc

[07:46am] IknowJoseph: flavour: according to github we're in the same town? Oxford?

[07:46am] flavour: ok

[07:46am] flavour: Cool, let's meet

[07:46am] IknowJoseph: sounds good!

[07:47am] flavour: So I integrate OSM into Sahana as much as possible - embed Potlatch, do import/export of our data to .osm format, use OSM Tiles as Baselayer

[07:47am] springmeyer: okay, thanks team - all usernames added to the github/hotosm group

[07:47am] springmeyer: so you should recieve an email notice

[07:47am] flavour: I assume the 'Potlatch on slow links' issue is more the data on live server as opposed to the client download?

[07:48am] springmeyer: I may still shift around a bit, but the important thing is I have your usernames now

[07:48am] flavour: We can fix the latter but not the former, obviously

[07:48am] flavour: I had wanted to be able to have a local replica of DB for edits

[07:48am] flavour: But that doesn't seem something that is easy to support in OSM currently

[07:48am] flavour: Although I guss that could eb done by adding to Sahana DB & then exporting as .osm

[07:49am] flavour: Funny hyow things click sometimes

[07:49am] springmeyer: flavour: I'm not fully following

[07:50am] springmeyer: we're discussing here the basic question of how can we work together better and what should be the top priorities for HOT re: tools and software

[07:50am] flavour: Yup

[07:50am] flavour: Well, the editors issue had been one, wasn't it?

[07:50am] flavour: Raised by the training team

[07:50am] flavour: Potlatch easy to use but bad on slow links

[07:50am] flavour: JOSM hard to use but great offline

[07:51am] harry-wood: yeah I was wondering about this too flavour. Wasn't clear if the issue was data traffic as opposed to the initial client download

[07:51am] springmeyer: yes, thanks for tying together

[07:51am] flavour: So I'm not sure iif Sahana can count as a HOTOSM tool

[07:51am] flavour: It certainly has some potential there

[07:51am] flavour: But it's not really its direct focus

[07:51am] harry-wood: Is sahana quite a big well funded project?

[07:51am] harry-wood: I have that impression

[07:52am] flavour: Pretty big although funds are project-tied as-usual

[07:52am] flavour: IFRC are investing a lot at the moment

[07:52am] springmeyer: flavour: there are tools HOTOSM works on specifically and then a wider ecosystem we want to support

[07:52am] flavour: We've been workign with Asia Pacific zone but both Americas & Africa have advertised for full-time positions to roll it out

[07:52am] springmeyer: sahana I would say is definitely one

[07:52am] flavour: So then IFRC will have 4 ppl globally working fuill-time on rolling it out

[07:53am] flavour: So a pretty big investment from them all in all

[07:53am] flavour: Cool - I see Sahana as beign a big way in which Huamnitarians will access OSM data

[07:53am] harry-wood: and Sahana deployment (sending people places) projects etc. So it's a full-on organisation which HOT needs to mesh with

[07:53am] flavour: & I'd like them to be able to contribute back more easily too as they have boots on the ground & know what's apepning

[07:53am] springmeyer: for those who missed the acronym: http://www.ifrc.org/

[07:54am] flavour: Job Advert for Africa: http://bit.ly/IPQ5b4

[07:54am] flavour: RMS = IFRC's branded version of Sahana

[07:55am] jgc: springmeyer, sorry, I was not looking: https://github.com/jgc31

[07:55am] springmeyer: jgc: thx

[07:56am] springmeyer: so, we have just 5 more minutes until wrapping up

[07:56am] springmeyer: 1) we covered existing tools

[07:56am] springmeyer: 2) discussed coordinating better via github grouo "hotosm"

[07:57am] springmeyer: 3) discussed related tools/projects like sahana

[07:57am] flavour: How does the GitHub group improve coordination?

[07:57am] springmeyer: 4) I mentioned I will be creating a tools page at http://hot.openstreetmap.org/ that I will look for review on

[07:57am] flavour: Tools page will eb a Wiki?

[07:57am] • pgiraud is still wondering how to get OSMTM in the list of repos in the hotosm github's page

[07:57am] springmeyer: flavour: open question.

[07:58am] springmeyer: pgiraud: let's connect on that after the meeting

[07:58am] pgiraud: ok

[07:58am] flavour: We need some kind of sctrachpad

[07:58am] flavour: To work out where the gaps are

[07:58am] flavour: & suggest ways of bridging those

[07:59am] springmeyer: flavour: yes, and maybe a high level issue tracker that indicates big gaps where we see solutions

[07:59am] flavour: Can we use the GitHub group for that?

[08:00am] springmeyer: flavour: sounds good to me - are others okay with that?

[08:00am] springmeyer: the other way to do it would be to use the osm wiki

[08:00am] flavour: I'm not sure if GitHub groups have trackers

[08:00am] flavour: Seems to be just repos

[08:00am] flavour: I'm fine with the OSM wiki if GitHub doesn't have a non-repo locatiion...or we could create a dummy repo for the coordination?

[08:00am] springmeyer: yeah, just repo's - so we could create a general repo for cross-cutting issues perhaps

[08:01am] springmeyer: yeah, exactly ^^

[08:01am] springmeyer: ideas for names?

[08:02am] flavour: Same as the group? hotosm

[08:02am] springmeyer: k, good call

[08:02am] springmeyer: okay, meeting time is up

[08:03am] springmeyer: thanks everyone for showing up and discussing broadly. I think this sets us up nicely for future meetings

[08:03am] springmeyer: my actionable items are:

[08:03am] springmeyer: 1) update hot.openstreetmap.org

[08:03am] springmeyer: 2) create "hotosm" github repo to coordinate on wiki

[08:04am] springmeyer: 3) work with pgiraud to discuss moving over tasking server to the hotosm github group

[08:04am] springmeyer: 4) send out TWG meeting notes to the hot mailing list

[08:05am] dodobas: hi

[08:05am] springmeyer: hi dodobas

[08:05am] pgiraud: thanks springmeyer

[08:05am] dodobas: is there anything i can do ?

[08:05am] springmeyer: thank you pgiraud!

[08:06am] harry-wood: springmeyer: IRC logs are pasted in as a subpage of a subpage of this page http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Working_groups by convention

[08:06am] springmeyer: dodobas: spread the word that we are getting organized

[08:06am] springmeyer: harry-wood: yes, great

[08:07am] springmeyer: harry-wood or anyone else, would you mind doing that?

[08:07am] dodobas: springmeyer: ok, ill read the log

[08:07am] springmeyer: my IRC client embeds the date for each line which makes copying it out messy

[08:07am] harry-wood: I have a magic script for this problem: http://harrywood.dev.openstreetmap.org/adiumirc2mediawiki.php

[08:07am] springmeyer: ah, sweetness

[08:08am] harry-wood: unfortunately i don't have the full record for today because I had to reboot in the middle of the meeting

[08:08am] springmeyer: okay, I can do it then, the datestamps are not a big deal

[08:10am] harry-wood: springmeyer: Paste it from your window, wrapping in a <pre> tag… and I'll have a fiddle

[08:11am] • pgiraud can paste it

[08:11am] springmeyer: pgiraud: gist and I will take a look?

[08:12am] harry-wood: right hang on I'll set up the subpage

[08:13am] harry-wood: did we schedule the next meeting BTW?

[08:13am] pgiraud: https://gist.github.com/2653812

[08:15am] springmeyer: pgiraud: thank you

[08:15am] springmeyer: harry-wood: I'm working on subpages now

[08:15am] springmeyer: harry-wood: we missed setting next meeting

[08:15am] springmeyer: I propose we discuss next meeting on the mailing list, sound okay?