ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Alan Pope <alan.pope@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mattias,

Thanks for the mail. I don't know much about the other services, but
know a bit about MLS. Here's my thoughts.

On 8 June 2016 at 20:52, Mattias <mattias@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> There are open source
> databases with an api like http://opencellid.org and
> https://location.services.mozilla.com/.

I've been keeping an eye on MLS for some time now. The data is
crowd-sourced by users of Firefox OS devices, users of Firefox Browser
on Android [1], and Android users who install the Mozilla Stumbler app
[2] & remember to keep it open while travelling around. With Firefox
OS on phones dead, that only leaves Android Firefox Users (who opt-in)
and users of Mozilla Stumbler. That's quite a commitment for Android
users with no direct benefit to them, which I suspect - combined with
the lack of Firefox OS devices, contributes to why there's a low
number of people contributing data to MLS [3].

I've been a Mozilla Stumbler contributor for well over a year on
Android devices. I've noticed that in the last month a very small
number of people submit data. A total of ~360 people *world* *wide*
have run the apps and contributed data, and in many countries there
are very few contributors. Columbia for example has two contributors
who have amassed only 22 datapoints between them. I've managed to get
to position #2 in the Czech Republic and #37 in the USA on the
official leaderboard [3] despite spending only 7 days in each country
since the leaderboard was reset mid-April.

With a low number of people contributing, the data will likely become
stale / inaccurate. So I'd caution using that database in particular
unless it can be proved the provider has long term plan for keeping
the data up to date and accurate.

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/improve-mozilla-location-services-turning-location
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.mozstumbler&hl=en_GB
[3] https://location-leaderboard.services.mozilla.com/

-- 
Alan Pope
Community Manager

Canonical - Ubuntu Engineering and Services
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.pope@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://ubuntu.com/