Overpass API developpement

[Roland Olbricht <>]

Hi,

> 1. Where can I follow to be notified of new releases?
[..]
> 3. Where is overpass currently being developed?

The releases are always from branch "minor_issues". As far as I know,
one cannot tell GitHub to use this as the default branch, thus the
impression on GitHub is admittedly misleading.

The purpose of that branch is to be able to patch minor bugs immediately
from the last stable version. This is reflected in the version numbers,
by the rightmost number.

I've never reflected whether it may make sense to just use the master
branch instead of the "minor_issues". It sounds implausible to have a
nervous master branch.

> 2. [..] Are there any update instructions for people who are running
> their own installation? The most important question being naturally:
> how do I update an existing installation to the new release?

All binaries of a minor version are intended to be fully exchangeable
for each other. I.e. you even do not need to stop the dispatcher but
copy the "interpreter" and "osm3s_query" over with the new version.
A change in the internal communication protocol would be a new version
in its own right, but has not happened since some years.

A new point version should be installed with a complete set of new
binaries. Whether the database can be reused is told in the release
notes. Most of the time, the format does not change, and some of the
last changes offered a one-way migration option from old to new.

> I thought that I had missed a couple of announcement mails on this list
> but I can't find anything in the archives either.

I take this a s a suggestion and I'm grateful for that. I will in the
future drop a few lines here as part of the release process.

> The installation
> instructions on http://overpass-api.de/ even still point to 0.7.55,
> so they are not exactly helpful either.

The installation instructions are to be replaced by those in the
documentation
https://dev.overpass-api.de/overpass-doc/en/more_info/setup.html
It is just not yet complete.

Roland