[OSGeo-Discuss] Anyone interested in geocoding and routing?

[Andrew Turner]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 4:01 AM, Judit Mays <mays at lat-lon.de> wrote:
> Jody Garnett schrieb:
>> Fair enough - one thing I am interested in is having an API to interact
>> with a range of geocoder implementations. I know the standards at osgeo.org
>> list will remind me of OpenLS - but I am not sure if that has seen any
>> adoption in the wild (although it looks like their is a new version
>> comming out with a range of interesting sponsors behind it).
>>
>>
>
> OpenRouteService (http://www.openrouteservice.org/) seems to implement
> OpenLS.
> I'm not sure about their implementation being open source (I somehow
> doubt it, as it isn't stated as such). But in their terms of use they
> say: "If you intend to use OpenRouteService in your own applications
> please contact us. We are interested in spreading the usage of
> OpenRouteService in academic and non-profit and Open Source projects."
>

Weren't we in Africa and learn our lessons? An API is not good enough
if the software/application is offline - or even on a slow connection.
And SOAP?!

There is an incredible need for an *open* and hopefully lightweight
geocoder. Yes, this can have an API on top of it using whatever format
- but needs to be able to run offline/locally if the data is
available.

I think OpenRouteService "looks" really promising, but based on brief
interchanges they are not yet interested in actually sharing the
source code yet. Claims of "difficult to setup" prevent them.
Honestly, that is not a good reason - open-source obviously doesn't
(yet) come with an expectation of being easy to setup. Hopefully
they'll share the source and engine soon. Otherwise I'm confused on
the Open* part of their name.

Andrew