Placemark is now open source
Placemark is now open source! In short:
- MIT license
- TypeScript codebase
- Contributions welcome
Placemark is the map editor software-as-a-service that I built for several years. It’s a website where you can import, create, edit, export, publish, and visualize geospatial data. I’m open sourcing it, so it will now be possible to run your own instance of the web application. You can see some of the things that Placemark can do in explainer YouTube videos, read the old marketing website that is now archived, and consult the blog that includes many details about features and technology choices.
If you want to learn about the open source codebase, I wrote quite a few blog posts about the architecture that are now archived in the docs repo. The README has been expanded, to some extent, with setup details.
I’d really love if folks tried out and made use of it. You can really do anything - use it as the foundation for your own application, pull parts into standalone modules, you name it.
Details:
- The public repository has a flat git history, to maximize security and keep my silly private commit messages out of the public web. I made 1,439 commits, 406,048++ 218,320– throughout the year. Adam Krebs contributed to the feature table element as well (3 commits, 570++ 279–)
- It’s complicated. I know it’s a fairly complicated codebase, and also that it is need of an update to Next.js. It’s also built on Blitz, which, while I love it, is getting lapped by tools like tRPC, and could be replaced with them.
- I’ll be moving more issues from the private repository to the public one over time.
- The Placemark website is staying online as-is for a little while, until I can archive some pages that are hard to archive. Any advice for how to archive a Webflow site would be much appreciated: their options are really limited.
- Have any other questions, or comments? Ask me. The discussions board is probably a good place to do that, if you have something private you need to ask, my email is on this site.
- I’m doing great! Val Town is going really well, and I’m excited for Placemark’s new era. Don’t worry about me.