A shared tile cache

[Yuri D'Elia <wavexx thregr org>]

Hi everyone.

I've been using JOSM and several other programs over time depending on
the functionality that I needed. Each of these programs, despite
querying the same servers, is handling an independent cache.

As an user, I always wanted these programs to share their imagery cache
to save disk and bandwidth usage. There have been some spot discussions
on the various mailing lists, and last month I decided to try to come up
with a solution to set things in motion.

I wrote the following draft, which outlines a very simple scheme that
mimics the already know tile format layout (with the exception of an
extra configuration file, the format *is* the same), a common location,
and some common rules in order for applications to cooperate on a shared
cache which *must* be simple to use.

The draft is here:

https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/SharedTileCache

As a developer, I'll try to implement the above scheme in JOSM (which,
like most other programs, has a slightly different sheme). I'm asking
all interested parties to look at the draft, and see whether what you
see is sensible, and you could potentially foresee using in the future
for a general user benefit.

Please chime in for suggestions and proposals. Nothing is written in
stone at this stage.

Thanks a lot for your time.

PS: The relevant JOSM bug report, for those interested:

https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/9813