Re: The status of Maps right now

[Jens Georg <mail jensge org>]

> As of recently GNOME Maps can no longer fetch tiles to display. This
> is because MapQuest,
> which we use as a tile provider, changed its usage policy[1].
> And we are no longer able to use the service without paying. We have
> as of know no clear alternative.
>
> We _could_ switch to OpenStreetMap own tile servers, see patches in
> bug[2]. But we would probably
> violate the terms of service[3]. Unless we, as GNOME, could argue we
> should be allowed.

Oh dread, I didn't know that - that's some annoying news indeed.

> This all brings me to a general status report for Maps. I have been
> absent from the project lately.
> The reason is lack of time and motivation. Day Job and family have
> been  taken front seat for awhile.
> Marcus, Andreas, Amisha and the rest of the team have been keeping up
> with some things. But we
> no-one have been making releases.

IMHO this is your spare time, you are very much allowed to dedicate as
much time to it as you want to, life changes, interests change etc. :)

> I will need some help. Help with contacting OpenStreetMap. Help with
> finding solution to our tile
> issue. I think we are going to need our own tiles.gnome.org for a map
> appplication/platform
> to be feasible.

I would also be very much interested in getting this sorted out since I
was about to merge some libchamplain-based geotag overview into Shotwell 
:(