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Date:      Tue, 18 Feb 2003 22:30:31 -0800
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.ORG>
Cc:        Stephen Hilton <nospam@hiltonbsd.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, julian@elischer.org
Subject:   Re: Hi!Dear FreeBSD!
Message-ID:  <3E532487.CF23A1C0@mindspring.com>
References:  <3E3BEC87.80600@gmx.net> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0302011042540.55342-100000@InterJet.elischer.org> <20030202103721.3996ec9c.nospam@hiltonbsd.com> <20030219001535.GB6403@clan.nothing-going-on.org>

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Nik Clayton wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 10:37:21AM -0600, Stephen Hilton wrote:
> > Why not base it on latitude and longitude, along with an
> > email address and text fields to allow for some self
> > expression of areas of interest etc...?
> >
> > A clickable map would be a nice interface for the database
> > lookups with a max radius factor, but really is just icing
> > on the cake.
> 
> Please, no wheel reinvention.
> 
>     http://www.pm.org/groups/index.html

None of those maps are clickable.  They're actually just *tiny*
PNGs of maps-with-pins-in-them, with no obvious correlation to
real location data associated with PERL (e.g. number of pins is
not equal to number of page entries, in most cases, and the pins
for Columbs, Dayton, and other Ohio locations all pops up at the
same pixel location, etc.).

It's really unfortunate that no one seems to be willing to put
out the server resources to do real GIS mapping, e.g. using the
data specifications at:

	http://www.opengis.org/

Given that it looks like it's membership restricted to people who
can pay, and that there are no decent Open Source rendering products:

	http://www.opengis.org/testing/product/index.php

and that it's in the best interests of the commercial vendors to
keep it this way, so as to not have to compete on the basis of
innovation, people are unlikely to find that this is going to
change very soon, unless someone who cares enough about maps to
keep suggesting that people implement this actually sit down and
build the map rendering software to do the job (hint: Stephen)

-- Terry

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