The OSM Mapnik tiles from http://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/ are fully opaque PNG tiles which makes it a base layer and unusable as an overlay.
Most WWJ applications would likely prefer to use OSM as an overlay.
The NASA OpenStreetMap map cache at https://worldwind20.arc.nasa.gov/mapcache served OSM overlay tiles that included transparent voids, however that server is currently returning 404 Not Found for /mapcache
Using OSMMapnickLayer with a default 50% opacity is a simple substitution for the broken NASA OSM layer.
Description of the Change
Why Should This Be In Core?
The default OSM layer is currently broken, creating a problem for all the demo/example apps.
Should not negatively impact any applications that use WWJ SDK.
Benefits
Minor change restores presense of a working OSM layer to all the demo/example apps.
Potential Drawbacks
OSMMapnikLayer hits a.tile.openstreetmap.org directly, including it by default would increase load on openstreetmap.org servers.
Applications that have the broken NASA OSM tileset cached locally and rely on the content of the default worldwind.layers.xml pointing to the Earth/OpenStreetMap.xml will no longer use that cached tileset. The cached NASA OSM tileset cannot be easily reused by OSMMapnikLayer because of different projections. The workaround for such applications is to retain the unchanged version of config/worldwind.layers.xml
Applicable Issues
#138