cellhunter --- the state of development and future

[ivvmm]

Onen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> ivvmm wrote:
>> I wonder how quick is it developed and how much people are involved in?
> 
> I am working on a similar project openBmap[1]. A thread has been started 
> by Stefan from FSO about the state of the collaboration between the 
> projects [2][3]. I am for collaboration and even for merge at least of 
> some code or so. To my understanding, so far, cellhunter sees 
> collaboration as sharing the data (Sebastian, please correct me if I am 
> wrong). In the thread you will see that Sebastian will have little time 
> to work on cellhunter until middle May. I let you read his answers in 
> the mailing list archives, to make your mind.
> 
> OpenBmap is welcoming collaboration. The source code git is 
> available[4]. The work is currently going on there. Nick is taking care 
> of the server side and website.
> 
> The difference between the projects is that we focus on quality of data. 
> We don't want to get a database full of bad data. Again you will find 
> our arguments in the thread pointed above[5]. I copy paste it here for ease:
> <quote>
> That is the
> reason behind keeping more details about measures. This allows to gather
> a lot of data, but with time, we can trash the low quality ones, because
> we have got high quality ones since.
> 
> This brings three questions:
> 1. if you have big HPV-Dops, your position is not very precise. If you
> add to this that you have a high speed, then when you take your measure,
> the GPS position is very inaccurate. And the time you get notified that
> the GSM connection has changed, this adds to inaccuracy.
> 
> My question is: do people think this argument makes sense?
> 
> 2. Do OpenCellID or CellHunter think this could be possible to add these
> extra fields to their database, and measures? This would allow to use
> inaccurate data, until when we have better ones. Then we could filter
> the low quality measures. I think we are still all learning a lot, and
> this would imply that extra fields could be added in the future. So this
> is probably not only a one shot change.
> 
> 3. The database should also keep track of the software (id and version)
> which has logged the data: this allows to ignore/remove data which has
> been submitted by a buggy software, even if the bug is discovered much
> later. That is also the idea behind keeping the GSM chip model +
> Firmware version + GPS chip, etc...
> <end of quote>
> 
>> In fact no one in my country is using it(looked at the map on
>> cellhunter's site). By also looking at the map we can see that many
>> regions are already covered.
>>
>> So when the next steps will be taken? I mean integrating the ability to
>> get a fix from a network cell for GPS clients. TangoGPS for example? Or
>> will cellhunter remain just a game?
>>
> 
> Jan has started some work on this in the framework (see git logs). On my 
> side, I have also started some work on this. Nick and I build sqlite 
> files for every country by operator, and I have started a DBus service 
> which would
> query the file to give the current GSM based location. Because of lack 
> of time, this goes slowly though. Any help would be very welcomed. [6]
> 
> Feel free to ask if you have questions.
> 
> OpenBmap package is located in SHR and FSO repositories (opkg install 
> openbmap-logger), and on opkg.org website.
> 
> Onen
> 
> [1] http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/OpenBmap
> [2] 
> http://projects.linuxtogo.org/pipermail/smartphones-standards/2009-April/000973.html
> [3] http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/devel/2009-April/005283.html
> [4] http://myposition.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=myposition
> [5] 
> http://projects.linuxtogo.org/pipermail/smartphones-standards/2009-April/000975.html
> [6] http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/devel/2009-April/005290.html
> 
>

Okay, I see. The both applications: openBmap and Cellhunter have their
advantages and disadvantages.

I have several questions about openBmap. Cellhunter allows not to have
an account and still contribute to the DB(remain anonymous, or to be
more specific --- not to connect the data you send with one special
nickname, but to hide among many). That's the serious thing which
prevents me from using it. Additionally registration could be
implemented in the app itself for easiness.

The second question is: the cellhunter's developers stated that they
will merge their DB with opencellid.org, which is a rather big one. Are
you going to do same things? Or are you going to just collect the data
for one unique database which is just truly accurate?

Why can't the user control the rate in which application collects the
data? I am not that sure about this feature as I do not know the
internals of the application. But explanation is: if you move on foot
you do not need to log data every 30 seconds. If you move on a bicycle
you do not need to log data every 10 seconds. If you move on a car you
have to collect data every ten seconds or so. Hope you got the point.