So the problems are:<div><br></div><div><ol><li>Users want instant download gratification</li><li>Downloading just OpenLayers.js makes all of the images break, and the documentation around fixing this is weak and hard to find</li>
<li>We'd rather people use lightweight builds & local hosting</li></ol><div>So</div><div><ol><li>Improve the OpenLayers.org website with a clear download link and a clear warning against using the 'hosted version'</li>
<li>Make that download contain easy-to-read documentation that explains what's in OpenLayers.js and OpenLayers.light.js</li><li>Document how to get controls working correctly on your site after downloading the library.</li>
</ol><div>Other libraries don't have this problem, because people can clearly see how and why to download them: see <a href="http://jquery.org">jquery.org</a>, <a href="http://backbonejs.org">backbonejs.org</a>, etc: the download links are visible. Not on OpenLayers.org.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The only libraries that recommend CDN-based hosting are those with stable servers and a good reason to do that, like Google Maps. OpenLayers has neither - <a href="http://openlayers.org">openlayers.org</a> goes down often and there's no great reason why people should be using a CDN-hosted version - a cross-domain cache isn't a very strong reason.</div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 1:54 PM, Peter Robins <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:openlayers@peterrobins.co.uk">openlayers@peterrobins.co.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
what do you mean by 'shipping'? AFAICS, the example you quote may have just done<br>
"wget <a href="http://openlayers.org/api/OpenLayers.js" target="_blank">http://openlayers.org/api/OpenLayers.js</a> > mycopyofol.js"<br>
or similar. I'd agree it's not a sensible thing to do - either make<br>
your own build, or use the hosted version which is cacheable across<br>
many websites - but I don't see how you can stop people doing it.<br>
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