I am looking for a MapLinx, Microsoft Maps or ESRI Buisness Map Replacement in OSS Software. Is there any such beast out there? On-line services will work as well if they provide the same functionality.
Dale Beams
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Your not going to find an open source map software. Map services require a lot of proprietary data. Guys driving around and putting in data on new roads and such. There are a few open source projects that use Tiger data files (which come from the government), but that data is not nearly as accurate. The raw map data is just not freely available.
Using google's map api's is probably as close to open source as you could get.
Dale Beams wrote:
I am looking for a MapLinx, Microsoft Maps or ESRI Buisness Map Replacement in OSS Software. Is there any such beast out there? On-line services will work as well if they provide the same functionality.
One thing that is out there is http://geocoder.us/
It is a set of perl modules that use Tiger data and can convert an address to a lat/long. I have played with it in the past, and it is accurate enough for hobby use, but I don't know if I would run a business with it.
Chad Phillips wrote:
Your not going to find an open source map software. Map services require a lot of proprietary data. Guys driving around and putting in data on new roads and such. There are a few open source projects that use Tiger data files (which come from the government), but that data is not nearly as accurate. The raw map data is just not freely available.
Using google's map api's is probably as close to open source as you could get.
Dale Beams wrote:
I am looking for a MapLinx, Microsoft Maps or ESRI Buisness Map Replacement in OSS Software. Is there any such beast out there? On-line services will work as well if they provide the same functionality.
Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
I mentioned that we could start an open source mapping project in the IRC channel a while back... I'm still interested if we can find enough developers and mappers to make it worth the effort.
On Wednesday 15 November 2006 15:49, Dale Beams wrote:
I am looking for a MapLinx, Microsoft Maps or ESRI Buisness Map Replacement in OSS Software. Is there any such beast out there? On-line services will work as well if they provide the same functionality.
Dale Beams
I know of a guy who has built his own mapping engines and put together location data from public sources. He's pretty busy, but he might at least be able to shed light on certains topics if needed. Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures into bmezine.com and it's sister sites. He's also recently gone Linux and runs Xubuntu on his laptop. He's been moving to UNIX from Windows for a while. He's done some really nifty custom work, including a worldwide location mapper, etc.
Jon.
On 11/16/06, Luke-Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
I mentioned that we could start an open source mapping project in the IRC channel a while back... I'm still interested if we can find enough developers and mappers to make it worth the effort.
A Qt app (the GUI) would be quite portable to Windows and OSX... so this wouldn't necessarily need to be a Linux-only project, either. So even if non-Linux users are interested, they might be able to work on the project as well...
On Thursday 16 November 2006 16:14, you wrote:
I know of a guy who has built his own mapping engines and put together location data from public sources. He's pretty busy, but he might at least be able to shed light on certains topics if needed. Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures into bmezine.com and it's sister sites. He's also recently gone Linux and runs Xubuntu on his laptop. He's been moving to UNIX from Windows for a while. He's done some really nifty custom work, including a worldwide location mapper, etc.
Jon.
On 11/16/06, Luke-Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
I mentioned that we could start an open source mapping project in the IRC channel a while back... I'm still interested if we can find enough developers and mappers to make it worth the effort.
On 11/16/06, Jon Pruente jdpruente@gmail.com wrote:
I know of a guy who has built his own mapping engines and put together location data from public sources. He's pretty busy, but he might at least be able to shed light on certains topics if needed. Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures into bmezine.com and it's sister sites. He's also recently gone Linux and runs Xubuntu on his laptop. He's been moving to UNIX from Windows for a while. He's done some really nifty custom work, including a worldwide location mapper, etc.
One warning- that link is potentially NSFW!
I am of mixed feelings here- while ANY expansion of OSS is good, appearances count too. Squicking the mundanes so deeply that they consider OSS to be entangled with
the BM set is a risk. Then again- there is a past example. In an attempt at image manipulation Edison proposed AC for judicial executions. , To prove his DC system as "Safe" and the competing AC system as "Deadly" Edison purchased alternators and donated them to prisons for use with electric chairs. The punch line however being that AC became the preferred current distribution method- even if only for practical considerations. So much for political grandstanding and technology playing off against each other. Let's hope I am being concerned about nothing.
Oren
I agree that people like Shannon can cause political uneasyness, but there are many in FOSS that can do the same. Heck, Shannon is an admitted Pink-Liberal-Pacifist. Politically I'm 180 from him, but he is brilliant in areas of computing. He writes his own database interfaces and drivers in hand coded assembly. The community area of BME, called IAM, has over 15,000 users and is a dynamic content creation system with actives users literally all over the world. He had it running smoothly at that level on a P3 850 running Windows and his hand coded software. He has other sites of interest including http://www.priceofhistoys.com/ http://www.undermars.com/ and his blog (linked to IAM) at http://www.zentastic.com/
Aside from political differences (many people on BME/IAM oppose some/many of his views) he is the one person I know who HAS done location and mapping work, on his own, nearly by himself, and gotten it to work. That alone is somebody who should be consulted for a project like this, regardless of his more extreme views. I forgave Linus for his fathers Communist sympathies years ago. :)
Jon.
On 11/16/06, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/16/06, Jon Pruente jdpruente@gmail.com wrote:
I know of a guy who has built his own mapping engines and put together location data from public sources. He's pretty busy, but he might at least be able to shed light on certains topics if needed. Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures into bmezine.com and it's sister sites. He's also recently gone Linux and runs Xubuntu on his laptop. He's been moving to UNIX from Windows for a while. He's done some really nifty custom work, including a worldwide location mapper, etc.
One warning- that link is potentially NSFW!
I am of mixed feelings here- while ANY expansion of OSS is good, appearances count too. Squicking the mundanes so deeply that they consider OSS to be entangled with the BM set is a risk. Then again- there is a past example. In an attempt at image manipulation Edison proposed AC for judicial executions. , To prove his DC system as "Safe" and the competing AC system as "Deadly" Edison purchased alternators and donated them to prisons for use with electric chairs. The punch line however being that AC became the preferred current distribution method- even if only for practical considerations. So much for political grandstanding and technology playing off against each other. Let's hope I am being concerned about nothing.
Oren
Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
On 11/18/06, Jon Pruente jdpruente@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that people like Shannon can cause political uneasyness, but there are many in FOSS that can do the same. Heck, Shannon is an admitted Pink-Liberal-Pacifist. Politically I'm 180 from him, but he is brilliant in areas of computing. He writes his own database interfaces and drivers in hand coded assembly. The community area of BME, called IAM, has over 15,000 users and is a dynamic content creation system with actives users literally all over the world. He had it running smoothly at that level on a P3 850 running Windows and his hand coded software. He has other sites of interest including http://www.priceofhistoys.com/ http://www.undermars.com/ and his blog (linked to IAM) at http://www.zentastic.com/
Aside from political differences (many people on BME/IAM oppose some/many of his views) he is the one person I know who HAS done location and mapping work, on his own, nearly by himself, and gotten it to work. That alone is somebody who should be consulted for a project like this, regardless of his more extreme views. I forgave Linus for his fathers Communist sympathies years ago. :)
Jon.
I may be guilty of overestimating the knee jerk potential here.
But- playing it from my original premise let's still not let our guard down . "WE" may be able to disconnect easily "best programmer" from NSFW pictures. The masses of mundanes sadly are often less openminded and OSS gets put at risk. THAT was why I listed the Edison grandstanding. As re-assurance that Fearmongering often fails in dramatic reversa
Political alignment aside- the link was cringemaking to me for it's potential -if nothing else- to get "netnanny" software associating Linux with "Not child safe" material.
Oren
Is this flame bait?
Seriously,... WTF?
-----Original Message----- From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Jon Pruente Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 9:10 AM To: Oren Beck Cc: kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: MapLinx or ESRI Buisness Map OSS Replacement
I agree that people like Shannon can cause political uneasyness, but there are many in FOSS that can do the same. Heck, Shannon is an admitted Pink-Liberal-Pacifist. Politically I'm 180 from him, but he is brilliant in areas of computing. He writes his own database interfaces and drivers in hand coded assembly. The community area of BME, called IAM, has over 15,000 users and is a dynamic content creation system with actives users literally all over the world. He had it running smoothly at that level on a P3 850 running Windows and his hand coded software. He has other sites of interest including http://www.priceofhistoys.com/ http://www.undermars.com/ and his blog (linked to IAM) at http://www.zentastic.com/
Aside from political differences (many people on BME/IAM oppose some/many of his views) he is the one person I know who HAS done location and mapping work, on his own, nearly by himself, and gotten it to work. That alone is somebody who should be consulted for a project like this, regardless of his more extreme views. I forgave Linus for his fathers Communist sympathies years ago. :)
Jon.
On 11/20/06, Jeremy Fowler JFowler@westrope.com wrote:
Is this flame bait?
Seriously,... WTF?
Hardly to be considered as flamebait. Consider it as FUD suppressing. Let's get real folks ! We currently have a reactionary and repressive to divergent lifestyles society. Saying otherwise is dishonest. Proceeding from that flat fact?
I can offer an alternate single concept ending to this post which gets restated as it's point. So read the one liner and quit -or follow my logic and constructive dialog may profit.
Concept: " Please tag or declare all NSFW or similar Grody links as such "
OK- either consider that the condensed version and quit here -or read on at your choice. But again- this is NOT flamebait- this is a sincere attempt at protecting OSS.
If we want to mainstream OSS we need to be mindful of NOT creating bad press. In a pre-Google world perhaps we could be unconcerned. But- all it now takes is a propagation from a semi-minuscule mailing list like THIS one into the "Blogosphere" When one sees Huffington expounding her views on network television we should grasp that the gap between what we post here and CNN is getting awful thin!
Again- dare we underestimate how strident a "voice" gets raised if the story is Grody? *I* am the LAST person to advocate censorship of any sort. But care in associations formed seems just simple prudence. The example first coming to mind is a keyword search on KCLUG by a soccer mom. She sees aforementioned link bearing page.-ABSENT a NSFW etc tag. She opens it up-gasps- in attempt to flee she sees the next page's "pincushion" image. She then tells the social circles she lives in that Linux or OSS or whatever keyword She was researching is entertained largely by THAT image. Nice public image eh? And we sadly dare not as already stated lightly overlook such events any more.
We are already in a time when File Sharing is equated with theft of music as it's only use. Internet gambling has become a cause celebre in legislation way beyond any possible reality. Add to that a widespread EXISTING belief that parental control means mom's hand on the mouse? So if mom's hand get's UNWARNED content and associates IT with US?
Point restated as: " Please tag or declare all NSFW or similar Grody links as such "
I can supply upon constructive request further explanation.
Oren
On Monday 20 November 2006 10:34, Oren Beck wrote:
Hardly to be considered as flamebait. Consider it as FUD suppressing. Let's get real folks ! We currently have a reactionary and repressive to divergent lifestyles society. Saying otherwise is dishonest. Proceeding from that flat fact?
Actually, we have a society that is *too* tolerant of not just "divergent", but flat out immoral lifestyles. While many people still might know enough to avoid queers, they often tolerate evils such are extramarital affairs (especially pre-marital) and contracepted "marriage". But now this is getting quite off-topic for a LUG...
Again- dare we underestimate how strident a "voice" gets raised if the story is Grody? *I* am the LAST person to advocate censorship of any sort. But care in associations formed seems just simple prudence. The example first coming to mind is a keyword search on KCLUG by a soccer mom. She sees aforementioned link bearing page.-ABSENT a NSFW etc tag. She opens it up-gasps- in attempt to flee she sees the next page's "pincushion" image. She then tells the social circles she lives in that Linux or OSS or whatever keyword She was researching is entertained largely by THAT image. Nice public image eh?
Do you think a "NSFW" tag would make any difference in that situation?
On Mon, 2006-11-20 at 10:55 -0600, Luke -Jr wrote:
Actually, we have a society that is *too* tolerant of not just "divergent", but flat out immoral lifestyles. While many people still might know enough to avoid queers, they often tolerate evils such are extramarital affairs (especially pre-marital) and contracepted "marriage". But now this is getting quite off-topic for a LUG...
Now THAT is some flamebait! Whoa! I am in awe of your flamebaiting skills.
*kneels before the master*
On 11/20/06, Jason D. Clinton me@jasonclinton.com wrote:
On Mon, 2006-11-20 at 10:55 -0600, Luke -Jr wrote:
Actually, we have a society that is *too* tolerant of not just
"divergent",
but flat out immoral lifestyles. While many people still might know
enough to
avoid queers, they often tolerate evils such are extramarital affairs (especially pre-marital) and contracepted "marriage". But now this is
getting
quite off-topic for a LUG...
Now THAT is some flamebait! Whoa! I am in awe of your flamebaiting skills.
*kneels before the master*
Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
Nicely wrought flamebait indeed- but I hold my ground on the concern. Being flippant wil not make the school board ignore testimony from a shocked soccer mom when they vote on a certain Linux purchase order. So think carefully.
Oren
who or what is "Grody?" I think the discussion was not about the adjective http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grody and I like to keep abreast (like any good perverted serial killer) of developments in popular culture.
On 11/20/06, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
who or what is "Grody?" I think the discussion was not about the adjective http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grody and I like to keep abreast (like any good perverted serial killer) of developments in popular culture.
-- perl -le'1while(1x++$_)=~/^(11+)\1+$/||print' _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
So we can move on - the BME site has images and text that are quite hardcore niche perversions. NSFW is an understatement. Someone used the term NSFA I recall.
To again redirect this to profitable topical areas-
We can be either good or bad for the future of OSS. Be mindful of which we are being.
Oren
On 11/20/06, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/20/06, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
who or what is "Grody?" I think the discussion was not about the adjective http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grody
So we can move on - the BME site has images and text that are quite hardcore niche perversions. NSFW is an understatement. Someone used the term NSFA I recall.
err -- okay, you did mean the adjective. Sorry, the capitalization threw me. Piercing is really that transgressive any more? I found the one story there that I read http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/11-surface/A61024/srfthebe.html to be kind of touching, and perfectly SFW. Where is the mapping software link though? (looks for links near top of page) -- okay, there are NSFW sections, /clearly labeled as such/, therein.
<judge> I dismiss the charge of posting NSFW links to the lug, but the charge of irrelevant links which has been made against Pruente still stands. He said, possibly on topic,
Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures into bmezine.com and it's sister sites
and the disinterested observers do not wish, for whatever reasons, to learn all the nooks and crannies and infected blisters of that web site in order to discover them on our own.
Jon Pruente, you stand accused of posting irrelevant links to a LUG mailing list. Please tell us more about these "location features" of which you have spoken, which give you such confidence in the skills of this Shannon Larratt.
And as for you, Mr. Beck, you improperly capitalized an adjective and for that you may not participate fully in thanksgiving feast this year but must restrict your diet to thin vegetable broth for two weeks. </judge>
I couldn't get much past the opening page and saw no useful linkage to GPS, software dev. or mapping of any kind. I think Jon just wants to share with us his "hobby" of slicing and dicing his anatomy and hasn't figured out how to put it. :-)
On 11/20/06, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
Jon Pruente, you stand accused of posting irrelevant links to a LUG mailing list. Please tell us more about these "location features" of which you have spoken, which give you such confidence in the skills of this Shannon Larratt.
And as for you, Mr. Beck, you improperly capitalized an adjective and for that you may not participate fully in thanksgiving feast this year but must restrict your diet to thin vegetable broth for two weeks.
</judge>
Haha. Truth be told, I have zero intentional mods on me. And I've never done any to anyone else. Shannon is a guy I know of who has done mapping work. I admit to being a little to quick to just drop a link to BME and not give pointers to more relevant info. ;)
Jon.
On 11/20/06, Brian Kelsay ripcrd@gmail.com wrote:
I couldn't get much past the opening page and saw no useful linkage to GPS, software dev. or mapping of any kind. I think Jon just wants to share with us his "hobby" of slicing and dicing his anatomy and hasn't figured out how to put it. :-)
Now this one is interesting. http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503101031.html - Mapping user locations and sacred symbols! ;)
Jon.
Pardon me if I'm being a link-post-nut, but I keep finding good links to stuff that might be of interest in a (the) mapping project. I don't want to link to the whole archive of blog posts that these come from, as it does contain NSFW images, so I'm just linking the particular entries. Like this one: http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503161227.html - A full day of usage mapping for a members only 10,000 user website, with an animation of it and how it was made. http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503182255.html - I'm not sure if he's still up for it, but he offered to make the same thing for other websites. http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503191258.html - Examples of more data http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503201831.html - Tweaking and featurizing http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503181128.html - Wondered what else bot-nets do? Ask they guy who runs a site attacked by them (for years), and who keeps records. And likes analyzing and modeling statistical data and locating where the nets are located. Way better guy to talk to than some "security expert" who tracked down a few bot-net attacks and *speculates* on what they try to do.
If one doesn't mind some NSFW images and some rather disturbing images once in a while, there are myriad cool techy posts in his blog. A lot of his little tools and widgets are free, if you can find them. He does so much odd stuff that even he has a hard time finding it again at times...
As I've mentioned, even just from a consulting stand point, he's a good person to ask about filtering/modeling data, gathering public info from various govt servers, etc. From his own projects alone I know one can get high res world images and name to location tables, etc. Sometimes the odd people are the ones who do or have already done a lot of the work for you.
Jon.
On 11/20/06, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
err -- okay, you did mean the adjective. Sorry, the capitalization threw me. Piercing is really that transgressive any more? I found the one story there that I read http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/11-surface/A61024/srfthebe.html to be kind of touching, and perfectly SFW. Where is the mapping software link though? (looks for links near top of page) -- okay, there are NSFW sections, /clearly labeled as such/, therein.
As I said, mapping is built-in to many functions of the site. There is the BME Events page that can track distance to events based on the event location and the location you are registered at. I less public areas there is much more that is available.
<judge> I dismiss the charge of posting NSFW links to the lug, but the charge of irrelevant links which has been made against Pruente still stands. He said, possibly on topic, >> Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures >> into bmezine.com and it's sister sites and the disinterested observers do not wish, for whatever reasons, to learn all the nooks and crannies and infected blisters of that web site in order to discover them on our own.
Jon Pruente, you stand accused of posting irrelevant links to a LUG mailing list. Please tell us more about these "location features" of which you have spoken, which give you such confidence in the skills of this Shannon Larratt.
There's one above. For another, a quick run to Shannon's blog at Zentastic.com (a mirror of his iam.bmezine.com user blog) we find: http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200607222137.html - Geo location fine tuning for the picky http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200505161225.html - Visually mapping IP to actual location, if known http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503161227.html - Visual mapping of use by location
Variations on Googleing with different terms helps, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Azentastic.com+location&b...
Here's one that's just plain geeky: http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503251648.html - looking for patterns in pi.
On 11/20/06, Jon Pruente jdpruente@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/20/06, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
err -- okay, you did mean the adjective. Sorry, the capitalization threw me. Piercing is really that transgressive any more? I found the one story there that I read http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/11-surface/A61024/srfthebe.html to be kind of touching, and perfectly SFW. Where is the mapping software link though? (looks for links near top of page) -- okay, there are NSFW sections, /clearly labeled as such/, therein.
As I said, mapping is built-in to many functions of the site. There is the BME Events page that can track distance to events based on the event location and the location you are registered at. I less public areas there is much more that is available.
<judge> I dismiss the charge of posting NSFW links to the lug, but the charge of irrelevant links which has been made against Pruente still stands. He said, possibly on topic, >> Shannon Larratt has built many location fetures >> into bmezine.com and it's sister sites and the disinterested observers do not wish, for whatever reasons, to learn all the nooks and crannies and infected blisters of that web site in order to discover them on our own.
Jon Pruente, you stand accused of posting irrelevant links to a LUG mailing list. Please tell us more about these "location features" of which you have spoken, which give you such confidence in the skills of this Shannon Larratt.
There's one above. For another, a quick run to Shannon's blog at Zentastic.com (a mirror of his iam.bmezine.com user blog) we find: http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200607222137.html - Geo location fine tuning for the picky http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200505161225.html - Visually mapping IP to actual location, if known http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200503161227.html - Visual mapping of use by location
Variations on Googleing with different terms helps, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Azentastic.com+location&b...
Web Mapping Illustrated Using Open Source GIS Toolkits http://www.oreillynet.com/catalog/webmapping/
Mapping Hacks Tips & Tools for Electronic Cartography http://www.oreillynet.com/catalog/mappinghks/
Google Maps Hacks http://www.oreillynet.com/catalog/googlemapshks/
-----Original Message----- From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Dale Beams Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 9:50 AM To: kclug@kclug.org Subject: MapLinx or ESRI Buisness Map OSS Replacement
I am looking for a MapLinx, Microsoft Maps or ESRI Buisness Map Replacement in OSS Software. Is there any such beast out there? On-line services will work as well if they provide the same functionality.
Dale Beams
_________________________________________________________________ Get FREE company branded e-mail accounts and business Web site from Microsoft Office Live http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/mcrssaub0050001411mrt/direct/01/
_______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
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Jason D. Clinton -
Jeremy Fowler -
Jon Pruente -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Luke -Jr -
Luke-Jr
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Oren Beck