[OSGeo-Discuss] Some Longish-term Assist Needed

[Arnie Shore]

Hello all.  I'm the lead programmer of a free, Open Source (mostly!)
Computer-Aided-Dispatch application - Tickets by name - that's currently
GMaps-based, which we're planning to fork to the OSGeo world of OSM/Open
Layers.  (Other considerations include PHP and MySQL bases as an OS-agnostic
web application.)

There's information re our application at
http://openises.sourceforge.net/tickets01.html and also
http://groups.google.com/group/open-source-cad

CAD is certainly a mature technology market-wise in that there's no shortage
of commercial sources of these applications.  But they tend to be expensive,
and there's a need given the huge number of local jurisdictions and
volunteer teams supporting them.  Typical user environments include local
emergency management/response offices as well as ham teams playing important
roles in supporting local emergency operations, special events, etc,.

It's in this last consideration that the need for a 'no-internet' - i.e.
local only - capability has surfaced among our users.  Which, of course,
dictates that we move from GMaps in favor of a completely local server-based
operation for tiles as well as all software.  Needless to say, other
considerations also point in this direction.  ^__^

A fair proportion of users to date have very limited experience in the care
and feeding of a web server and application, and the availability of the
WAMP/LAMP/MAMP stacks has been a god-send in that respect.  I'm loathe to
add any component that might add to that complexity.

Frankly, I don't see a large need for cartography per se, so the use of
low-footprint tile-serving PHP element makes sense to me, rather than using
any of the array of servers and caching/rendering applications discussed
here. It would simply present OSM tiles stored on the user's server.  Note
that this approach contributes directly to the goal of minimum installation
complexity.

What we're looking for:  We're all volunteers here, and we're looking for
more of the same.  Specifically, someone who has some hands on skill (or
interest in acquiring such) in use of Open Layers (primarily) and OSM
secondarily.

The work will consist of (first) developing a tool that will allow a user to
identify and gather the OSM tile sets specific to his/her geography, and
then the script-by-script revision of the existing GMaps functions into
their OL counterparts.  You'll want pretty good JS chops here.

I realize that I haven't gone into this in any depth at all and that there's
no shortage of questions right now.  But if this piques someone's interest,
please contact me offline at shoreas AT gmail DOT com.  And thanks for
making it down this far!

AS
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